Oh dear, I am irredeemably middle class...

[midnightexpress]

DS1 (3)already refers to all play car parks as 'The John Lewis car park'. When we are out, if he smells a bonfire or smoke from a chimney, he now declares loudly 'Mummy, I can smell a wood-burning stove'.

Bless im.

My ds insists on trips to the sushi bar in Selfridges.

I did hear reported on a parents' TV show an exchange that went something like this:

Scene: family special occasion, granny serving celebratory drinks

Granny (to grandaughter): I'll be this is the first time you have had Champagne!
Grandaughter: No, it's not my first time. And besides, this isn't Champagne, it's Cava.

!!

You keep fighting then shineon, I'm very comfortable with my middle class existence ok yah

A doctor friend points out a grazing horse in a field
"Look at that yellow horse!"
5 yr old DD replies "That's not a yellow horse It's a Palomino pony"

I have the slightly strange problem of being just back in the UK after living in Nepal and SYria for 6 years - DS1 (now 4) never lived in England before, and comes out with things that sound unbearably exotic and glamorous but aren't at all. Like singing Allah O Akbar whenever he feels like it and thinking all buildings look like mosques. Like calling nursery his "embassy" because that's where Daddy works and so he has to have one too. And preferring hummous to fishfingers because he doesn't know the latter (impossible to get).Nothing wrong with all that but I spend my life toning it all down to fit in back in my own country and getting him into Bob the Builder!

Whoop whoop.

Promoted to Classics.

Well done Midnightexpress for your excellent thread

This going to be toe curlingly wincing so apologies in advance for not anticipating this:

Farming dc and dc with large properties running over the front lawns of homes in an open plan housing estate to get to a friend's party not knowing each patch of grass belongs to different houses (until told off of course)

We were in the local leisure centre caff after swimming, having just ordered sandwiches and chips, and DS (3) said brightly, 'Shall we have a starter?'.

DD2 (3) asks for wild mushroom risotto for dinner

Here in Scotland housecoat = dressing gown

we would call one of those old fashioned housework things a pinny

Although in our house a housecoat/dressing gown is known as a unicorn thanks to DD1, we are not middle class just barking

DS asked the Headmaster if the food was organic and if the salad bar served rocket and salami.

hf3092809., I'm with you!!

I know that I can serve the occassional ready meal, I can swear, I can even eat with my mouth open if I feel passionately impatient about getting my point across.

I would cringe to the core if my children thought that the words John Lewis hung automatically in the air before 'car park'....

I shop in the cheapest shops anyway, they've never been to John Lewis! I've been on my own mind you. I heard my daughter's name yelled out in Asda and I felt like we were in Blurr song! Keepin' it real.

People are really defined by their class in the UK. I haven't a clue what class I am, and I never felt the absence of that classification (boom boom) until I went to live in England.

My friend's daughter thought I actually lived in John Lewis because that's where we always meet for lunch! My cousin recently married her partner who is called John, and the vicar got the giggles for a full 5 minutes when it got to the 'do you...' bit and said the guy's middle name which was... you've guessed it... Lewis. How middle class is that? (Apparently he hadn't noticed it in the rehearsal!)

Housecoat aka bungalow dress as worn by Miss Willey in their shop in Holt.

Can't believe I've missed this thread.

My dd and her friends have been known to play at "nannies and au pairs"...

One of their favourite games is to make pretend diaries and then arrange playdates with each other.

Friend's child at small cafe:

"Mummy, where are the napkins?"

She thought it was funny too.

In Waitrose today ds (age 4) pointed to some gazpacho and said "ooh this looks interesting, mummy can we try it?"...I could see the shelf stacker man smirking...

Look. You do know pointy had a whole thread on housecoats don't you?

this is one.

They were worn, by Mancunian women, with hair in rollers, fag in corner of mouth, when putting out the milk bottles or scrubbing the step or shouting 'wash your curtains, you dirty bitch' to neighbours or having punch ups over men at 11.30 after the pubs had emptied and she'd stepped out in her slippers to drag home a husband who was buried in a blonde barmaid's decolletage.

It is NOT a cleaning tabard of thin polyester.

It is NOT a dressing gown.

It IS quilted, flowery, worn all day for reasons lost in the mists of time along with the reasons for eating tripe and bubbles appearing in tarmac in the long hot summer.

I do like this housecoat leitmotif. Wonder what it means.

Northern women don't eat tripe - thats down to all you southerners - with your pickled eggs and jellied eels - you dirty bitches

i always thought housecoat was a colloquialism for dressing gown - only a housecoat was always a heavy winter one - rather than a silky lacy one.

rest of it was an apt description though - although i would substitute cutains with 'fanny'

I can confirm that Northern women do indeed eat tripe. In Salford, Bury and Blackburn it is still on sale in markets (along with cow heel, elder, chitlings). My two grandmothers (before they died) remembered eating all kinds of random body parts from the local butchers.

Many relatives remember eating honeycomb tripe with loads of vinegar. DH even remembers boil in the bag tripe

I think we should have a counter thread on our WC origins that don't involve licking motorways clean.

My colleagues didn't really believe me today when I told them we didn't have a bathroom and used to bath one a week in the upstairs bit of the local swimming pool. In the 1970s

oh so its your family who are the exeption that proves the rule

not sure i understand the licking motorways reference

It's from the Monty Python competitive Yorkshiremen sketch, Custy.