Name: Polly is an old nickname so having found a Polly avatar I'll stick with that.

Age (ish!): old enough to know better.

Location (approximate - no actual address, please!): the UK's beautiful west country

SLOCs/children/pets/imaginary friends: I have a husband who has had almost as much fun stalking Amazon for the cheapest way to complete my Chalet School book collection as I have. No kids, just a small gecko.

Favourite and least favourite books and characters: Goodness, that a tough one! Exile and the very early Tirol books are the best IMHO. I liked Joey, Robin and Mary-Lou when they were young. Once they grew up I went off them a bit. Least favourite? Joyce Linton I think, and Fête is probably my least favourite book.

How you got into the Chalet School: I believe I borrowed my first books from the school library and then the town library. Then I started asking for them for birthdays and Christmas. I had quite a lot in both hardback and paperback, but after I left home Mum donated all but the first 11 to charity shops. I've been working on gradually getting the whole collection in paperback, and have just completed it.

How you found the CBB: by a random search to find out how Philippa Maynard had mastoid problems in Summer Term but this has mysteriously become polio by Challenges. I thought I'd missed a book somewhere, but no, this seems to be an EBDism.

Hi RedSquirrel - good to meet you, and thanks for introducing yourself. Hope you enjoy the board!

PS I'm not surprised if Fete is your least favourite book - it shouldn't be out on its own! Seriously, it's just the back half of Genius (with a bit added when that book was divided in two for the Armada paperback series). OK, that's better than just missing a chunk out, which was what happened to some of the other titles, but not much.

Welcome to the CBB .

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Hello and welcome.

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'We command the power of the elements. Storm, Earth and Fire! I'd never dress like an oversized chicken and shoot moon beams from the sky' - Stormcaller Jalara

Hi, nice to hear from you RedSquirrel! Happy posting!

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Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary – it is the respective proportions of those two categories that make that life appear interesting or humdrum.
William Boyd//Any Human Heart

Welcome Red Squirrel - saw you in my garden earlier

That's it, you're ensnared by the CBB! Hello and welcome!

Hello and welcome, Red Squirrel, from one of the seniors on here (in age, not in length of time on the CBB!)

No EBD-ism, by the way; Philippa Maynard had both mastoid *and* polio, poor little mite. I think the mastoid episode was during Summer Term, and she had polio in the summer holidays, between Summer Term and Challenge, might even have been during the Challenge term. If I remember rightly, Jo mentions both illnesses in Two Sams when she asks Hilda to give Samaris special permission to go and play her flute to cheer up Philippa; that book is set the term after Challenge.

Hallo Polly and welcome to the CBB! And congratulations on completing your CS collection - no mean feat there! Have you any other collections?

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"And I'm sure there was blood in the gutter from somebody's head, or else it was the sunset in a puddle."

EinO - That's so mean to poor Phil to give her two illnesses at once! I don't think any of the other characters got hit twice, unless you count the sports field and meteorites (which is unlikely enough the first time, let alone the second)
Thanks for straightening that out for me.

Abi - Thank you! I have quite a few complete book series collections (Jane Austen, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Harry Potter, most of Rosamund Pilcher's, oodles of Maeve Binchy) but nothing else of the CS scale. I have one Abbey Girl book, picked up at a jumble sale.

Noreen - I did know that Fête was published in the paperbacks. I think the hardback contained Genius and Fête together, right? I thought it was a bit of a swizz making the paperback collectors buy two books.

JS - how lucky are you to have real red squirrels! We have a couple of families of common greys that visit ours. They're such a joy to watch.

Thank you to everyone else for the welcome. It's so nice to find that there are lots of other grown-ups with the same affection for the CS books.

Yes - exactly right about the hardback of Genius containing the text of the paperback Genius plus Fete - but minus the extra bit that was written for the paperback, of course.

As for splitting some of the books, a few are too long for making into paperbacks anyway, but I remember one reason the way the Armadas are as they are (some abridged, some divided etc) was to make them affordable for young readers at pocket-money prices. However, I don't suppose Collins jibbed at making a bit of extra money in the process by spinning the series out a bit... Do you have any of the Girls Gone By paperbacks? They do at least have the complete texts and original front cover illustrations, though the out of print ones can be quite expensive.

Yes, I have the GGBP versions of Lavender, Changes, Triplets, Reunion and Summer Term, courtesy of my DH. I really like the essays and extra insights they put in.

Hello and welcome to the CBB

Hello and welcome to the CBB.

When I lived in Spain, I saw red squirrels all the time in the Madrid parks. (I'm sure they inhabit other parts of the country too!)

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''He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot

Hi and welcome to the board, RedSquirrel - from another who, as you put it, *is old enough to know better*.

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"When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not more of a pastime to her than she is to me?" (Montaigne)

Welcome to the CBB

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Wishes the land of Merlin and magic was real

Greetings and welcome!

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Someone cooking meat at the den of the fox said, "We do not mention this in front of the mongoose." Sumerian proverb

Outskirts Of The Twenties: Polari

Non-CS fic: Late Back (Good Omens)

Welcome to the CBB

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She is too fond of books and it has turned her brain - Louisa May Alcott

Welcome to the CBB - enjoy.