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| "This central heating is really making my lips chapped!" |
The Great Betty references the hospital car park:
"the sacred corner where the consultants parked...". And there The Great Betty is telling me all about her cheeky attitude towards hospital hierarchies, great socking Bentleys, and her own place in the pecking order. And that's what I love about reading even the not wonderful books. You'll be turning a page a get a little gem like that. Thanks, Betty!
Our hero
'disliked central heating"...Hmmm...I suppose he has a point. All that clean, smut-free air circulating evenly throughout a once-draughty stately home. It's really almost offensive. But seriously, other than the air being a bit drier, are his objections likely to be anything a stick of Carmex couldn't fix? (No, I'm really asking here. What might his objections be?)
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| Cat house, not cattery |
"I suppose I could find a cattery..." I just love the word cattery but it sounds like it's just as likely to be a cat-rendering factory as a cat kennel. Betty Debbie had her mind far away in the gutter--said it sounded much like The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Shame on Betty Debbie. (snort!) Anyway, I can't figure out if I've never heard this word because Americans don't use it or because I'm too middle-class to know anyone who might hire one.
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| Do you have any decent clothes? |
Henrietta says about the
lost and found at the Hensen's: "there were always odds and ends left behind by forgetful visitors - plastic bags, bottles of lemonade, the occasional half-eaten sandwich, scarves....". Whenever I tour a stately home (which is not often, I grant you) they always make us leave our backpacks in a cubby or locker and drinks would be a big no-no.
Our hero actually asks at one point,
"Have you any decent clothes?" And at the time she'd have to be wearing...erm...you know...clothes. It would be like accepting a ride in his Rolls-Royce and asking if Doctor Hunkydoctor had another car. You know, one that would get a girl home
really fast.
Our heroine's salary at the Hensen's is
50 pounds for a 53 hour work week! Sure, she gets room and some board but I'd be handing out union placards and going Norma Rae on that after a fortnight, tops.
I'm not sure if The Great Betty was up to speed on salaries, but then I'm not sure if Sir Peter and Lady Hensen qualify for whatever laws govern minimum wage in the U.K. Certainly room & board was worth a lot, but I agree -- girlfriend should have been making more of the soft & grubbies!
ReplyDeleteI don't know anyone here in the US who boards cats except in dire circumstances -- we have reciprocity with our neighbors: when they go away, we cat-sit Spuds & Sammy, and when we go away, they cat-sit Linus and Polly. Of course, we are apt to travel more than they, so we try to come home with single-malt Scotch...
Central heating isn't ubiquitous in the U.K. (although I bet business in retrofitting houses with heat is booming after two super-cold & snowy winters!) as there are gas fires (like a freestanding radiator that has actual flames -- it looks like a fire hazard even turned off) in all the rooms. But my reaction to that scene was rather tangential: is he burning wood (scarce compared to here and thus very expensive) or coal? My brother-in-law's house in North Yorkshire is illustrative: there's radiant floor heating in the kitchen and hallway, but the sitting room has a coal fire. It can take a while for that room to get unchilly...
North Yorkshire without central heating - brrrrrrrr!
ReplyDelete;-)
I have a hunch people find central heating a big waste in large houses - why heat rooms you're not using, especially when that might be 20 or 30 rooms?
Friends from church who (then) lived in a vast, old house (complete with servants quarters) were rather economical with their central heating. We were at a dinner party there one chilly February evening, and the living room had a small fire place on one of the long outside walls - very large room. Four sofas and it was still very roomy.
Picture 20 people huddled together around that fireplace and you get an idea of how that dinner party progressed! Some of us "bundled" on the sofas, while the rest just huddled at the fireplace.
This couple was not short on funds, but I'm sure they found the cost to heat the place comfortably to be exorbitant and just refused to do it. Those of us who were there that particular evening remember it and wonder why, for that party, they didn't up the thermostat! :)
As for the salary - I've wondered that any time salaries are mentioned, in Betty's books or other Harlequins. All I can say, is there must be a lot of cheap, nasty bedsits available for people surviving on those kinds of incomes to live in!
me<><
Oh, and my nieces and nephews all seem to have multiple animals and often have to board them at a kennel - which takes both cats and dogs.
ReplyDeleteme<><
I board my cat at a kennel when I go out of town as I don't have anyone here I trust enough to come into my home let alone take care of my cat. Plus, I live in the Desert Southwest; I don't want her to suffer if the electricity goes out in the summertime, which happens sometimes due to bad summer storms.
ReplyDeleteCentral heating. It's that time of the year again when you don't want to do without. In North America when people speak of central heating they often mean warm air circulating (through ducts) throughout the house. In Europe when people speak of central heating they usually mean warm water circulating through pipes and radiators. If you are lucky there is a radiator in every room, fitted with a thermostat. Or, if it doesn't have a thermostatic valve it will have a regular valve. You can regulate the heat individually in each of the rooms. You can turn on the heat in those rooms you want warmed up and leave the heat off in those rooms you don't use.
ReplyDeleteRadiators are of course not always a pretty sight. And perhaps the Great Betty wasn't fond of them. In addition, some radiators are too small for the room they are supposed to heat. And you cannot just add another shovel of coal...
Betty Anonymous
The semi-basement flat that Dr. van der Stevejinck and I set up housekeeping in had a large radiator. It was not on the floor, but up on the wall above the couch. Weird. So were the noises it made.
ReplyDeleteI lived in Ireland for a year, in a converted carriage house with 'central heat.' The radiators putted to life each morning and evening at 6:00, got the house up to 60 degrees F/15 degrees C and then shut off. We used what Americans call space heaters in the dining room, where I would sit and read wearing: wooly tights, long-underwear top and bottom, a long-sleeve t-shirt, heavy socks, jeans, a hooded sweatshirt (hood up), heavy wool sweater and furry bedroom slippers. Sometimes a pair of silk-knit glove liners that were light enough that I could turn pages.
ReplyDeleteMy Irish roommate wore leggings, socks and shoes, a floaty cotton skirt, cotton blouse and light sweater. She also had the space heaters up much higher than I.
My mother recalls her going to tea as a child in England wearing wooly tights, a full slip in some heavy-ish material, boots, a sweater and a heavy tweed suit with the skirt well below the knees, and huddling round the fire in a huge drawing room much as Betty - Cindy, isn't it? - describes above.
As a student I lived in semi-basement myself for two years and my landlady, whose daughter lived on the first floor with her family,and there were two more appartments in the building, had turned down the temperature of the boiler to save on the heating bills, her daughter's heating bills, to be precise. It was suggested to me to get an electric heater. Which I did. I still froze each and every day. The electric heater giving off a dry uncomfortable heat which never managed to dispel the uncomfortable feeling one got from the cold walls and floor. They may have saved on their heating bill, but since the cost for electricity was included in my rent (Ha!) my landlady later had cause for complaint: She got a bill from the hydro company with additional charges! And I didn't feel one bit sorry for her.
ReplyDeleteBetty Anonymous