The Garden Fence - proper Old Style support and chat!

monnagran

Polly, you have the best ideas!

I think it will be a long time before burtha is in a party mood but fuds and Hester will cross the tape together I think.

Had we better start baking?

I've done nothing useful today. A friend came and dragged me kicking and screaming out for the day.
Really, enjoying yourself is sooo exhausting. I'm nearly asleep as I type.

See you all tomorrow.

mardatha

Oh Polly the Famous Five? I remember Kirrin island !!
I wonder if there's a thread for Ratty Sarky Old Bats... if there is then somebody point me to it please. It's so moi.

karcher

mardatha wrote: »

Oh Polly the Famous Five? I remember Kirrin island !!

I absolutely loved The Famous Five books and The Secret Seven
Probably not the done thing to admit that now, but I read them all again and again

pollyanna_26

Monna It's good to get out . You can be party planner due to your mass catering experience . We'll need to consider which role Hester will have very carefully .

Mar I'd join that thread . You can start it off , I struggle to keep up with my own !

polly x

pollyanna_26

Karcher I often read books from my childhood . I loved the Anne of Green Gables series of books and have a set of them now . The Little Women series and others are here . They're all the ones I read under the covers as a bookish child . Of course Pollyanna is here too .
polly

nursemaggie

I loved Enid Blyton when I was a kid. I especially liked the mystery books. Similar to Famous Five but better.

I still like Murder Mysteries and thrillers. I tried reading a Famous five about 20 years ago. Gave up before the end of the first chapter. Terrible writer, brilliant storyteller. They were wrong in the 80s to ban them they got me reading in spite of my mothers constant telling me to stop wasting time and go and do something. By do something she meant do the housework for her. If you don't read bad writing you do not recognise the difference.

I swear my mother thought women were not allowed time off from working from birth to death. Not even one tea break. I do wonder why she thought all my fathers sisters sent me books for birthdays and Christmas.

Needless to say I still read a lot and managed to read 9 long books when on holiday last time.

pollyanna_26

NM My mum put a lot of taking care of the younger two my way but things were like that then . She worked hard in the home but when she sat down in the evening the knitting and her latest library book would come out . As the eldest I would be last to bed so we would knit a bit , chat a bit until it was time for me to go to bed . She knew I would be awake for hours secretly reading and would call upstairs a few times to get to sleep . It never worked and she knew it !
She had a fondness for the Miss Read series of books and I had strict instructions to look out for the latest one on my library trips . I never saw the attraction until decades later when I flicked through a paperback one in a shop . I went on to read them all and could see why she was attracted to gentle tales of village life and the village school , different entirely from her boring and fairly repetative life in the late fifties / early sixties .
It's gone midnight so I'll say goodnight and hope you get to sleep and remain so .
polly

monnagran

Pollyanna, I actually lived a Miss Read life in the late fifties/early sixties. I started my teaching career in a 2teacher village school, just the headmistress and me. I couldn't have had a better start.
All the village characters were there and my class consisted of 20 5 to 8 year-olds, plus the occasional toddler who had to be minded for a bit.

As for reading, I was a terror, still am. I can hear my father now when he caught me reading with a torch under the blankets, "You'll try your eyes. You'll need glasses before you're much older."
Fortunately I was blessed with his eyesight. He only ever needed reading glasses and I am the same.
I also loved Enid Blyton, the Little Women books, Anne of Greengables etc. especially school books, The Chalet School was one of my favourites. I also read all my mothers books at a very early age, authors such as Dornford Yates, Beverley Nichols (ugh! I think now) and all that genre. I'd read the labels on jars and bottles if there was nothing else available.
From this family of avid readers I managed to bring up 2 boys who were surrounded by thousands of books and had to be nailed to a chair before they would read one of them.

I love these late night chats, but had better try to get some more sleep in or I'll be like a limp dishrag for the rest of the day.

mardatha

I was another avid reader, under the blankets and every spare minute. I can still hear my mother saying "Ye'll ruin yer eyes!" She thought reading was a complete waste of time. I read everything in sight - all the usual stuff like Chalet School, FF, SS, and then started on my dad's Reader Digest Omnibuses which I loved the name of By primary 7 I was onto Agatha Christie, John Buchan, Geoffry Household, and then in my teens it was AJ Cronin which made my mother think I was off my head lol. And when I discovered Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.. still have every FuManchu book ever written and read them often Very creepy and atmospheric - can transport me instantly to Limehouse in 1910. I always wanted to go to London and see Limehouse but it probly isn't there any more ...

VJsmum

pollyanna_26 wrote: »

Karcher I often read books from my childhood . I loved the Anne of Green Gables series of books and have a set of them now . The Little Women series and others are here . They're all the ones I read under the covers as a bookish child . Of course Pollyanna is here too .
polly

nursemaggie wrote: »

I loved Enid Blyton when I was a kid.

I still like Murder Mysteries and thrillers. I tried reading a Famous five about 20 years ago. Gave up before the end of the first chapter. Terrible writer, brilliant storyteller.

So glad you said that, I can't stick Enid blyton. Everyone thinks I'm off my head, but she is a DREADFUL writer. I think the same about Beatrix Potter, great characters, dreadful writing.

monnagran wrote: »

I also loved Enid Blyton, the Little Women books, Anne of Greengables etc. especially school books, The Chalet School was one of my favourites.

Another one for the Chalet School. Also liked Pollyanna, AOGG, the Katy books, and Alan Garner. Read all of The Harry Potter books as an adult and love them. Could read them again and again...