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.....

And no bloke ever gets blamed for terrible parenting. Even professor Richardson can't help it as he's a genius. That won't wash as he's hardly that clever to take off in a rocket without proper training or knowledge. He's a tit.

Professor Richardson may be the only father to even remotely censured - he just pisses off and abandons his kids for months on end with someone he's only just met. And then he buggers off into space and dies. Idiot.

Jo's excuse with Margot is that if she was going to have only a short life they wanted her to have a happy one. Which is trotted out over and over again and ignores the fact that she was 'cured' aged what, 10?

I always feel so sorry for Lydia - her son is killed, she's treated horribly by the doctor, and then bloody Jo inherits her house but doesn't want to ever live in it - do they hand it over to the National Trust?

I know, poor Sybil. And then her whole personality changes and she becomes quiet and sweet and good and interested in bloody needlework, FFS. I like Bad Sybil much more!

Me too i liked stroppy Sybil.

Yes Jack inherits merry maids? So where does Lydia live?

Anyway my lambs I have my baby grandson to sleep over tonight and am trying to I still discipline. You know as Hilda says you 'can't afford to neglect even the first few days of a babies life'

He's disinclined for bed at 7 and it's not even teeth!!!

My lambs what should I do? I am in jeans so if anyone has a lime green twin set could you send. Also a long black wig with ear phones. If I pretend to be joey he might sleep the night.

You think?

The reason I need him to dk

To sleep is grandma needs to finish her stamp album for the sale not of course to get into the light country wine.

Having just tried some of the husbands special occasion brandy I can indeed confirm that neat brandy is in now way pleasant.
Having said that neither is senna or castor oil.

Cerita is pronounced with a soft c. Or at least that's how my friend does it.

My solid lump of comfort woke him up by turning the light full on. He forgot baby was In the bedroom.

Stumped as have no Idea how Chalet school girls respond to a man that had totally and utterly pissed them off. Are chalet girls allowed to kick the crap out of their solid lumps?

A dose maybe?

You must be as rude as you know how and call him a cad and a bounder

Hmm, I'm not sure the cad and bounder is at fault here, my lambs. Jo's children are trained to sleep through all manner of disturbances from an early age - granted she doesn't mention that this should include SLOCs turning on the light but I would assume it should do.

maythefleas - were you just tasting the brandy, or was it administered for medicinal purposes, following a dreadful experience of seeing a mannequin in the lake or a sleep-walking child?

I had forgotten Jem is particularly horrible to Sybil after the Josette thing. Well, he's still preferable to Jack but I've gone off him a bit. Gottfried it is, then. Or any one of a dozen mistresses.

Bonjour, les filles!
Can confirm that parsing was torture.
Sleeping babies of the time? Hmm... I think that gripe water probably helped, plus brandy rubbed on the gums for teething? (I remember when DS was born and I picked him up when he cried, my MiL said, "Put that baby down, you'll take a rod to your own back". Imagine that on AIBU.)
Actually, I think it only confirms that EBD knew bugger all about men and even less about child-rearing. She was good on Mistresses and gels though.

This thread so hilarious.

No I see it was all my fault the sloc turned in the light as I hadn't greeted his homecoming with a pot of strong coffee or s plate of sandwiched, cream cheese and lettuce of course so the poor boy was all discombobulated.

Baby woke at 4 am, surprised as no teeth or appendicitis but just wanting to play. I fear I am Lydia Maynatd and am spoiling him.

I can't even fancy Gotfried as he's always getting Gisela with her hands full. Do these women ever say no!

No prefer Nell Wilson she's a good stick and still does her daily dozen while that glorious red hair is peeping through the White. She can row and has many guiding skills and is a weather prophet.

What more do you need?

Oi - hands off, mine!

Nell my lamb yes you saw him first I see that. Mmmm well it may have to be plato then. I expect he wouldn't be interested in making my hands full so that's a bonus although 'prithe maiden' might be irritating. Still good old 'Sally go round the moon' would make an interesting sil.

I the entity tread some fan Fick on 'lime green musings' where Jem and Jack were secret lovers.

I nearly needed brandy from a brawny peasants hip flask and a dose.

There is always Dick Bettany....I mean you get to be married, have babies and then send them off to someone else until they are old enough to be a real help to you...

"You don't have to look after your own children" seems to be a recurrent theme in the charms of the Maynard/Russell/Bettany men.

Not CS, but my nomination for best husband if you have to have one is Andrew Marchwood from the Abbey books. He marries Our Heroine leaving her sadly puzzled as to what to do about her gorgeous inherited house in which she wants to stay, and her adopted ward who she couldn't possibly take with her to Marchwood Manor. Luckily a few weeks after the wedding he takes off on an African expedition and gets killed shortly before the birth of their twins, leaving his young widow with the title Lady Marchwood, two beautiful red-headed babies, boundless wealth to add to her already boundless wealth, and the right to stay in her own home instead of moving to his stately pile. Plus we're told that as they'd been married such a short time it didn't matter so much - they hadn't got used to a life together (sub-text: she never liked him anyway and wanted to carry on running in and out of her friends' bedrooms at night as per before her marriage). Win-win.

I loathe Jem. I think he's shown throughout as a bully. Remember the bit in New House where Joey, who isn't famed for her shrinking violet tendencies, is clearly quite scared of him? And the random beating of other people's children, like the Italian princeling whose name I've forgotten in New.

I remember when DS was born and I picked him up when he cried, my MiL said, "Put that baby down, you'll take a rod to your own back". Imagine that on AIBU.

My mum was like that when I had DD1. She thought that a week-old baby was being naughty when she cried, and she would never learn to be a good baby unless left on her own to reflect on her naughtiness.

Did she also say, "You have to show them who is boss" and "they are never too young for a routine?".

EmilyAlice, you must be my long-lost sister-in-law because your MiL and my mum are evidently the same person. Does that make us sisters by marriage? Baggsy me be Verity

Well my Mum sang from the Truby King songsheet as well, so perhaps we are sisters?
I think my elder sister had the full TK routine, outside in all weathers except fog, held over the potty from 4 weeks, no picking up even a minute under four hours for feeds etc.
If you are Verity, am I OOAOML then? But I am Simone with my chateau....

Quick change of identity. If you are Simone with your chateau, and we're sisters, I think that makes me Renee? Or have I muddled my Lecoutiers? In which case it's hey, for the Paris conservatoire. Result!

When my DDs were born I lived on a main road and didn't have a garden, so even my mum didn't think I should leave them outside. But she definitely thought I should leave them in the bedroom in between four-hourly feeds, and stoically shut the door and leave them to cry if they so much as whimpered.

I think that is right. Mlle is our chère tante (décédée) and the garden Director is André.
BTW we have emergency bags and passports packed ready to flee for the Channel Islands post-Brexit. Anyone know a good chap with a yacht?

Ah, I think the Abbey suitor sounds like the best solid lump of all. I'll have one of those too, please, along with any number of mistresses. As husbands go, he seems to stand in stark contrast to Mr Trelawney who takes off on an expedition and pretends to get himself killed, leaving his poor wife stuck with his bullying mother and a bumptious child with bell-like clarion tones. Although presumably she is to blame for the child's shortcomings. Why is Jo not to blame for Margot and Mike's shortcomings? I get that there is at least an explanation for Margot being spoiled, but Mike just seems to be inherently bad for no obvious reason and I don't think any other CS child is allowed to be so.

Delighted by your discovery that you are long-lost sisters by marriage, my lambs. And thrilled to think of Emily's new chateau on the Channel Islands - I hope you'll be getting yourself a few of those charming dark Guernésiaises maids, with their pretty manners and curtsies, not like the lumpen Gwladys.

Or how about Julian Lucy who just goes and buys houses for you, thus saving you the trouble of looking for yourself?

and I believe he also chops your hair off while you sleep..(or is that someone else??)

Ooh, I don't remember the hair chopping thing! That's quite creepy. I am not fond of Julian Lucy but I do like Paul Ozanne.