A fête worse than the Chalet School

[EmilyAlice]

Roll up, roll up!
Bid for a mortgage on the doll's house! Pin the tail on the St Bernard! Guess the weight of the handsome doctor! (Or pin the tail on the doctor and guess the weight of the St Bernard). Knit a lime green liberty bodice against the clock!
The Chalet School fête is open.....

Nell, you can join my troupe of baby angels if you like. The plan is to cavort merrily round the stage for a bit, then let the coat-hanger substitutes take over while we slip backstage for a game of cards and some light country wine.

It's okay, Nell the trips may be out of action but Joey has, once again, come to the rescue and offered not only to do all their parts, but everyone else's as well.
So we don't need to do anything but relax and listen to that golden voice...

Excellent. So we're all baby Angels, Joey is everyone and everything else, and the bedsheets are the stand ins. Now all we need to do is perfect the harmonies to Joey's Mary's girl and boy children.

Hmm, I can't help thinking that some coat-hangers with sheets turned sides-to-middle hanging from them, cavorting around the stage to the tune of Joey's golden voice sounds a bit creepy really. Nonetheless, I suppose by the end of the bottle of light country wine book I shall still find myself wide-eyed wondering "why do I feel like crying?"

In other news, my lambs, I acquired a copy of New Beginnings very cheaply a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't been able to read it yet because that cover is just too awful to be seen with on the tube. :(

I am waiting for my package of 19 (squeeeeee!) CS books to arrive - ebaytastic :)

So, I am reading School at. Joey says that a new family have arrived, Father, Mother, two girls, two boys and a grown up girl. We find out that three are Wanda, Marie and Wolfram...who are the others?????
I have just got to the bit where they are in Innsbruck with Herr Marani, I just can't read about him any more without that sadness of knowing what happens. (Tries to remind self it is not real..)

I am reading Exile at the moment. :( EB-D was ahead of her time in making the distinction between Germans and Nazis.

Yeah, I always feel that way about Herr Marani. :(

I have finished New Beginnings. It is so much better than the cover. Not a favourite fill-in, but very faithful and didn't jar at all. Actually I found it really really interesting to consider it alongside Chalet Girls Grow Up, because in spite of being so divergent in obvious ways, they're both very much in line with canon, in their own ways...

And while you're reading it you can't see the cover.

Another one here who feels sad reading about Herr Marani. He's so nice in the early books and I get all lump-in-the-throatish every time he appears. I haven't read New Beginnings - how far into the CS future does it go?

I'm shocked that anyone could be anything other than awed and moved at the prospect of a bevy of baby angels (average age 59) prancing about with wire coat-hanger back-ups. Trouble is, some people on this thread are just too darn sophisticated. Me, I have the simple faith of the Tyrolean peasant especially when I've had a bottle or two of light country wine. How are the carol practices going?

I've given up singing the carols and am concentrating on yodelling. I think that should impress the peasants audience.

"Oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum...yodeleyeeeeeeeee!"

I hope there's a helpful echo nearby, so that your yodel can come back to you like fairy notes across the mountain. (Also it's a pretty magical echo, I noticed when re-reading Oberland - Dickie makes some kind of noise compared to a dying bull or something, and it still makes a pretty echo!)

New Beginnings takes place I think three years after the end of Prefects - Len is back from uni, engaged and planning her wedding but taking up a post at the school in the meantime. Con is also back home, and writing. (Con's story depresses me a bit in this, although it's not that anything 'unhappy' happens, but I like her story in CGGU much more. But I am quite certain New Beginnings has it exactly as EBD would have.) Jack Lambert is head girl, so you get Wanda, Jane etc as prefects.

It fits seamlessly into that era of the CS - no big changes and nothing unexpected. I don't think I'll read it again, but likewise I'm not sure I'll ever read any of the ones later than New Mistress again (and even the earlier Swiss books, I'm not exactly inspired to return to any time soon).

It finishes up with Len's wedding, which is after Christmas so I think the whole book is only a term long. I can't swear to that though - it could be a year and a term - I did start to skim a bit towards the end.

All in, it's a serviceable fill-in. But not in the same league as Taverton High or CS Headmistress. I am v much looking forward to the forthcoming prequel-prequel!

Yay prequel-prequel, I'd quite forgotten about it! Must be due soon, no? I loved Taverton High. I'm not exactly inspired by what you've said about New Beginnings - think I'll add it to my 'would read it if it came my way cheaply' list.

Who is it round here who plays the sax? I'm sure there's someone - hope whoever it is has been practising saxophone yodelling. It'll go beautifully with Herr Anserl's glockenspiel, you should hear the lovely thing that Nina has written for them both.

I am learning the sax! It is not going too well.....but should work fine with yodelling!
DH has ordered the prequel prequel for me for Christmas (or he had better have done!) I have bought DD lego which she always wants DH to help make it so i can read in peace!!!

OK, would anyone like to know how totally dense I actually am?
I have just finished School at. It ends But that, as Mr Kipling says, is another story....and today for the first time ever I have realised that that will be Mr Rudyard Kipling, author as opposed to Mr Kipling creator of delicious cakes! I always thought it was an odd line!!! How sad does that make me??!!!

I don't know about sad, Hels my lamb, but I'm a bit worried by the implication that you may have been eating shop-bought cake. Next thing you'll tell us is that you've been whispering about boys.

Ah, but Mr Kipling's French fancies - they're perfect featherbeds of whipped cream!

Does Joan get improved by a quick natter with Aunty Joey over aforementioned featherbeds, btw? I'm hazy, can only remember OOAO having it explained to her gently that Joan is a bit fast, what with being common and all.

No Nell, I think she ran away after hearing OOAO talking about her and was brought back to school and given special milk or had a chat with Miss Annersley whose content neither of them ever revealed.

But she always remained a bit cheap and common in her heart.

Can May a new girl join in, so late in the term? I'm Irish, so clearly both wild and in possession of a beautiful brogue (which I've been told I'll be allowed to keep, unlike those of you unlucky enough to have other regional accents ☺️). I'm sure my masses of black curls and my blue eyes 'put in with a smutty finger' can add something to the Christmas play this year.

Please please please tell me that 'put in with a smutty finger' is an actual verbatim quote?

Yes daisys, I like that Joan basically doesn't get wholly fixed. She sort of floats on the edges of acceptance, and I think sort of gains approval in spite of never quite becoming a real Chalet girl.

Alors mes agneaux, my golden tutu is finished, my pointe shoes have new ribbons (hand-sewn by Mlle) and my crown has been polished by devoted handmaidens. Are all the angels, coat hangers-on, babies, mangers, sheep etc ready? Has Joey practised the background vocals for my solos?
I would also remind you that Friday is our birthday. I hope you have everything ready?

A golden tutu, Emily? Isn't that a bit cheaply pretty? (And how many mangers does this production feature?)

Well, I tried on my coat-hanger angel wings and I think it's fair to say I look like the most demure angel in the Tyrol, despite eyes that dance with the promise of mischief.