Some Fretwork and the Interminable Christmas Play at the Chalet School

[EmilyAlice]

Now girls, line up and listen because this term is a busy one. Firstly we are combining our hobbies club and the Christmas play, so we will need our fretworkers to get busy on the scenery, some beautiful découpage for decorations, our nimble-fingered needlewomen on costume duty and some scrapbooks for - er...
Now one other thing girls. As you know the Chalet School has moved from the Tyrol, to Guernsey, to Armishire, to some island or other and thence to Switzerland.
This term we have moved again and the first thing I want you to do is to find out where the bloody hell we are....

I must have wandered off and couldn't find my way back from the old thread! As a consequence I've lost my coveted window cubicle in Spinach and just have the green leaves scattered across the curtains to gaze at

Nell is it the Harry Potter railway you're going on?

Don't feel sad, Margot - you may have lost your lovely window view (what is the Mongolian equivalent of the Jungfrau, please, so that I can better picture this?) but the dainty cretonnes bespattered with spinach are so lovely to look at too.
No, not the Harry Potter railway - DS not yet old enough for that - it's the Strathspey railway, which looks suitably scenic and apparently involves mince pies at Christmastime.

I am brimful of CS-related things I want to earnestly blog about and fanfic I want to write, probably badly. And DLS on kindle and Gladys Mitchell in the post. And Regiment half-re-read. This enthusiasm is a direct result of having too much boring work to do at the moment, and once those deadlines are past and I no longer have to look at work stuff in the evenings, I will undoubtedly lose the thread of all the things I wanted to read and write and think about... I am tempted to tell my boss that I am working myself into a brain-fever, or whatever it is that Mary-Lou does in Three Go, and that I need a week in San to recover.

The situation that always annoys me (apart from Len being basically sold to the grasping reg entwhistle) is poor Josette. She was going to university and instead gets dragged to Australia and both get and Sybil get stuck there with Aussie husbands. Bit grim.
Oh I hate this too. Trying to be generous, I imagine EBD thought it might be wonderful to have a family trip like that, and for both sisters to find lovely husbands and be able to both start a new life in Australia etc, but I don't like it at all, I don't think it sounds right for Josette, and I also don't think it sounds much like Madge. Is this all part of the same rush to tie up the more important loose ends, which I think is why Reg ends up all but dragging Len down the aisle in her school uniform? (So perhaps ideally the Australia trip would have happened after Josette had been to the LSE and Sybil had been to her needlework school?)

Great drama in the Freudesyurt nurseryurt, my lambs: OFSTED have visited and raised serious concerns about ratios, what with Rosli looking after 37 young Maynards on her own, and all the angels' and reindeer's offspring on top for the Christmas play and rehearsals. I think they're hoping another Pfeiffen might be able to pop round to help out. Everyone is so devoted to their beloved Jo, after all.

I think Ofsted also raised concerns about the number of kidnappings that had occurred from Freudesyurt. Am having second thoughts about leaving the singleton there. Could he be a lamb?

Right, I have finished Regiment of Women and I would very much like to talk about it. Please can we have a discussion thread for it filled with spoilers?

Right, I have finished Regiment of Women and I would very much like to talk about it. Please can we have a discussion thread for it filled with spoilers?

Wait for meeeeeeeeeeeeeee - I've only just started my re-read. Don't say anything interesting until I get there.

I think Ofsted also raised concerns about the number of kidnappings that had occurred from Freudesyurt.

It's OK, panic over. Rosli has written a 197-page strategic plan for the development of the nurseryurt. She's currently running it up the flagople to see if anyone salutes.

But Rosli is a Coadjutor. Surely in Ofsted terms the ratio is 1 Coadjutor: 397 children?

Does the RoW discussion thread belong here in Children's Books or over in What We're Reading? We might attract other readers in What We're Reading but they may not understand constant CS references as to how Joey would immediately have picked up on Louise's problems and sung her to sleep or scattered feathers or explained to her that GPs* are a Bad Thing.

• In the CS usage. Not a general practitioner. In CS terms they are a very good thing ans must be married immediately, although are not quite such a good catch as a TB specialist.

In the CS usage. Not a general practitioner. In CS terms they are a very good thing ans must be married immediately, although are not quite such a good catch as a TB specialist.

I think it probably has to belong in What We're Reading, but with a quick bit of helpful context explaining that we are a bona fide MN quiche, although obviously a nice Chaletian one who always sheepdog welcome new girls.

I didn't know there was such thing as What We're Reading. Uh-oh, squoodles of hours of extra procrastination time have hoved into view on the horizon.

Think I have just found ROW free on Gutenberg?

Damn! I paid £8.27 on Kindle for mine.

I was about to and then thought with that date of publication it was worth checking.

Emily you have just changed my life! I didn't know Gutenberg existed.

And yes, ROW does seem to be on there. I'd never heard of it but have just downloaded it to see what you're all on about! I'd looked on Amazon already, but it is indeed £8.27 on there which I couldn't justify.

Goodness gracious me. I have just come across the following line in Autumn Term by Antonia Forest:

(The domestic science mistress) "had...told Lawrie that she would never catch a husband if she couldn't remember to put salt in her greens".

I mean, DH obviously tested me on the saltiness of my greens before proposing. Naturally.

I would have thought that any husband who could not afford to pay someone else to cook the greens was hardly worth catching.

In ROW I have just found the word defervesced. It has a certain logic, I suppose.

Hmm. Maybe this is why I remain unmarried and unmarriageable.

Fret not, Cheddar, for I definitely paid more than £8.27 for a paper copy...

Emily my lamb I am afraid I don't follow your point re: 'defervesced' and have just had to google it to find out what it means.

No point at all really - I just hadn't realised that effervesced had an opposite.
I have been reading about Clemence Dane and how she used words innocently without understanding the double entendre (such as inviting Noel Coward to lunch because she had a lovely cock). It is certainly noticeable in ROW isn't it?

So, it's half term, and I am under a pile of marking/planning/sorting out of resources/trying to plan the carol service/KS1 play etc. How on earth do the staff at the CS manage to spend their half term on excursions with the girls and still be ready to teach? I mean WHEN do they do planning and organising etc??? (obviously I would get slightly more done if I was not posting on here but I ma taking a break and longing for a cup of coffee with featherbeds of whipped cream..)

Fret not, Cheddar, for I definitely paid more than £8.27 for a paper copy...

Books are lots cheaper than they used to be, aren't they? My 1995 pb edition says £8.99 on the back. This very interesting website tells me that equates to £16.14 in today's money - which is quite a lot more than I'd pay for a standard (ie not rare) paperback over the counter nowadays, and much, much more than I'd pay for a kindle version unless it was something I absolutely had to have.

Oh I think you only did the planning once hels. I had a friend who taught history in an independent school for girls and she just wrote up her university lecture notes and used them for the next twenty years.

God, I could really murder a cup of coffee with obligatory featherbed of whipped cream, but alas I have no cream in the house so I cannot. The coffee will have to be with plain boring milk instead.

Thank you for the kind encouragement re £8.27, Nell!

RoW contained a fair few literary references that rather passed me by, but at the time I was too hooked to go and look them up. I shall have to flick back and see what they were. There. "the Sadducean attitude to personality". Never 'eard of it. Wikipedia says the Sadducees were a Jewish sect who did not believe in any life after death - the soul is not immortal and there are no rewards and punishments after death. That makes sense in context.

I bet the devoted Anna knows the correct proportion of salt to greens, but she turned down her one proposal of marriage.