Calf's-foot jelly and beef tea

[ailbhe]

I'm a bloody invalid. I'm going to be like that girl who was bedbound and beautiful (unless she was plain but didn't mind because she wasn't vain? I forget) and terribly terribly brave and turned her sickroom into a haven of peace and conflict-resolution for the whole family. I forget who she was; it wasn't Pollyanna, but it was about as sickmaking as that. Her accident was something depressingly domestic, too.

However, I'm reading plenty of books; almost every post seems to bring a parcel now; I really will have to get someone to start returning them to people. I have, and many thanks for them, one pack of Chalet School books (my god, how incredibly jolly hockey sticks the first few are!), two packs of Marlow books (still no Cricket Term, but I've read all the others and Traitor is another one that makes me genuinely distressed for the characters while I'm reading it), and one of Gemma which is Teh Fab because I can't get them anywhere else *either*. I'm also reading a Bill Bryson, because his books are sort of episodic and one doesn't have to remember a whole plot, but it's tough going; my current reading age is a small number.

I'm going to try getting up for lunch again tomorrow; last time I got up for a meal I suffered for it, but that was a few days ago now so it's worth another try.

Emer's just past five months old, teething madly, and sitting up solidly. Linnea is glad I've started spending time in bed in the front room downstairs, rather than isolated in my bedroom. Last night I dreamt that my mother was the head of state and had sentenced me to death by poison in a fortnight.

Comments

[taimatsu]

Katy from What Katy Did perhaps? She fell off a swing she had been told not to use, and injured her back. And then she took up the reins of the household from her sickbed and made eeeeeeverybody haaaaaappy. Mmm.

I really want to find my Chalet School collection! I hope my father gets his bookshelves sorted soon so I can go and unpack the boxes to find them.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it. Her Cousin Helen was the original Beautiful Invalid, who encouraged her to be the same.

[taimatsu]

Oh yes! Gosh, I'd forgotten that bit! 'What Katy Did' was the book I covered for my Brownie Booklover badge, and my copy still has the brown paper on it with the wobbly felt-tip lettering.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Remember the tip about not frowning? Cousin Helen used to smooth her forehead with her hand and purposely try not to frown, so she didn't get lines. I used to love those books.

[ailbhe]

Because obviously when you're stuck in bed for life being ill, the *important* thing is to look happy and young. Yeah.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

In a way, yes. It's a pollyanna book, but a lot of the tips in there are useful. Sad but true. You feel better in a pretty room with good light and brushed hair. You just have to cleave away the sugary fluff.

I am sad, I still enjoy a reread now and then.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Well, according to her (if I remember correctly) she tried more to stay serene and happy, so she didn't fall into depression and start wallowing in it. That said, it has been a LONG time since I read the books!

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Ah, horrible Helenic literary role models. I was so stoked when I found out that the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, who booted her alcoholic, violent husband out of her bedroom, was also Helen. I truly feared becoming Saintly Crippled Helen of the Unwrinkled Brow.

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

It was Katy from What Katy Did - she fell off a swing in an act of disobedience and suffered an unnamed back injury as a result!

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

Hehe! I see I was way too late off the mark then! :-D

[alison.hemuk.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah, Katy. 2 sequels too, What Katy Did Next and then one about her going to boarding school. I nearly added them to the pile I brought round to you, but decided they might be rather too painfully apposite, lol!

[batswing.livejournal.com]

I liked the first 2 *shame* but never finished 'What Katy did Next' - It was all about being a Grown Up and boring.

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

I have all three as a single volume. I think the middle one was my favourite, being nuts on boarding school stories as I am. As far as I can remember, Katy spends a lot of 'What Katy Did Next' looking after A Sick Person, and so wins the love of Male Lead who might otherwise have been tempted away by Girl With Nice Clothes.

I'm sure they have names, but I can't remember them.

I did also get an overwhelming impression that Susan Coolidge must either have gone on holiday to England once and had a really awful time, or never been there at all. She seems to have a very low opinion of the place.

[whirligigwitch.livejournal.com]

I discovered recently (relatively) that there were 5 books in the Katy series. The last two are called Clover and In the High Country. I've never found copies of either two to read them. I liked the original What Katy Did book best :)

[alison.hemuk.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Lol, lots of simultaneous commenting there!

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I'm *so* sorry you are ill!

Do you want me to post the Nancy Drews I have here? Mysteries and a Girl Detective! From the 40s, I believe! They were a staple of my girlhood.

Hmmm. I wonder if that explains my Buffy obsession?!

N.

Cousin Helen

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to hear you're still ill and do hope you feel better soon.
Yes, Cousin Helen was the saintly one - actually, of the three books "What Katy did at School" was probably my favourite. The Susan Coolidge books are slightly less sentimental than Louisa M Alcott's "Little Women" which I never read as a child as I thought (correctly) that it sounded a bit Soppy, though I did enjoy it as an adult. Daphne xx

Re: Cousin Helen

[ailbhe]

Hah, and I found Katy unfinishably nauseating, whereas I quite enjoyed all the Alcotts.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Like everyone else I clicked on the comments link to say that you had What Katy Did in mind - but isn't that odd? She started off anything but saintly, and her accident wasn't that domestic, but we all knew what you meant...

There's also Heidi's cousin whatsit, isn't there?

[merryhouse.livejournal.com]

Clara from Frankfurt (was she a cousin?)

I quite liked WKD but I could never understand why my family likened me to "poor little Elsie" because Elsie was the *third* in her family not the fourth. It was a while before I realised that Rachael was the Katy character and my oldest sister was Cecy...