#chilblains

[yellowballoonx]

[ohsweetzombiecthulhu]

Fellow chronic illness possessors: this is the worst winter yet for my feet. The chilblains are absolutely wrecking me. Anyone have tips or tricks for lessening the pain?

[bennetsbonnet]

Started reading Longbourn by Jo Baker and ooft... it's a struggle.

What's billed as 'a reimagining of Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the servants' according to a quote on the cover is actually the author forcing their modern views onto domestic staff in the Regency era that it seems unlikely they would ever have held.

The narrative primarily follows Sarah (who is named in the original novel which furthers my point that the staff do have a role in it) who seems annoyed when she actually has to actually serve the family who employ her to be... a servant? Yes, to us today the concept of being employed by someone else to wash their clothes, help them dress and serve their food seems.... strange... to say the least, but at the time it was a job like any other and part of the strict hierarchical structure of society where everyone 'knew' their place.

While it is true that the Industrial Revolution saw domestic staff leave positions they held at estates such as Longbourn in droves and move to cities in search of better job opportunities and pay... that really began in earnest after this time (particularly when railways began to be constructed and travel became easier).

One of the servants came from a workhouse and as anyone with even a passing familiarity with the plot of Oliver Twist will understand, if you came from such abject poverty and dismal circumstances, being a servant at a country estate would seem like an amazing life in comparison.

There are also a lot of allusions to slavery which are, in my opinion, clumsily done and forced into the plot in an attempt, I think, by the author to subtly compare the suffering of slaves to the situation of domestic servants. Which is not only misguided but also pretty insensitive (to say the very least) given that tens of millions of human beings were forcibly removed across the Atlantic Ocean to work against their will in unimaginable conditions (if they even survived the Middle Passage) to line the pockets of the rich and to construct the nations which they and their descendants have largely been kept from benefitting economically from to this day... whereas servants in Britain worked for a wage and were (largely) treated well by their employers and had agency (obviously within reason, if they were treated badly they could quit but it would be a risk).

But servants spoke to each other, so masters and mistresses of estates knew that they must treat their staff well, otherwise they would never be able to secure decent help as no servant worth their salt would work for them. I don't dispute it was a tough life! But there were definitely more precarious situations than working an estate such as Longbourn for a family such as the Bennets.

Plus, I question the need for such as a perspective as I would argue that Pride and Prejudice actually does draws attention to the servants. We know the name of both Longbourn's housekeeper, Mrs Hill (who tells Elizabeth and Jane about the letter Mr Bennet received with news on Lydia) and Pemberley's housekeeper, Mrs Reynolds (who has an enormous part to play in improving Elizabeth's opinion of Mr Darcy).

In addition, we learn something of the respective companions of Anne de Bourgh, with Mrs Jenkinson ('in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening to what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before [Anne]'s eyes') and Mrs Annesley ('a genteel, agreeable-looking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind of discourse proved her to be more truly well-bred than either [Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst]').

Servants are present in the original novel. They are not described in detail because a contemporary audience would understand they would have been present, sort of like how modern day novels would not have characters charging their phones up or detailed descriptions of them being used. They're just so commonplace and second nature to us that we understand everyone does those things. and it was similar back then with servants. They weren't callously 'ignored' by Jane Austen; it isn't within the scope of the novel for a reason because Pride and Prejudice focuses on gentry families and their personal relationships with each other... rather than the servants who washed their dirty dresses...

[sanctuairee]

this is so funny bc my friends haven't seen me for the past 6 days on account of me not Going outside at all. tomorrow when they do see me I'll somehow be worse

[kermitheefrog]

i have an illness that make me rate everything i watch on mubi 5 stars 🏜️

[skyllion-uwu]

I always forget that when I walk I also have to walk back

[r7inyz]

can it be summer please. pls can it be summer I'm gonnadie

[purityvalentine]

got told off for using my heater even though i only use it in short bursts o+<

freezer room renaissance

[yepiamthesmileyface]

the remote control for my heater has been stuck under my bed where I can't reach it for like a week now and it's started to be a problem

[heartshapedhackjob]

I have multiple illnesses and conditions right now that would have afflicted and killed not just a Victorian era child but any individual from the early 1900s perhaps too

[the-moons-coffin]

wow I love january. i love the month where my hands get swollen and itchy and i can't do anything without it hurting. wow january

[xdenlojahund]

.

[amethyinst]

i think i can add arthritis to my list of mental disorders. my fingies hort

[amouramaryllis]

Raynaud's Mom

[sashayed]

ive started using a heating pad at my desk (bc of that time i gave myself Flop's Chilblains) which means there's a new warmest seat in the house for the tiniest girl in the world

[whumpster-dumpster]

Some Winter/Seasonal Whump

Frostbite

Wind chill

Chilblains

Snowed in

Trench foot

Hit by icicles

Hypothermia

Sleet and hail

Slipping on ice

Fall through ice

Cold/Flu season

Hot cocoa burns

Bloodstained snow

Lost in a snowstorm

Huddling for warmth

Sick from overeating

Seasonal depression

Car crash on icy road

Lost heating in house

Alone for the holidays

Poisonous holly berries

Ankle broken while skating

Pulled back while shoveling

Cozy fire goes out of control

Skiing/snowboarding injuries

Nonconsensual mistletoe kiss

Chronic pain aggravated by cold

Fall from ladder while decorating

Nonhuman brumation/hibernation

Pinned under fallen Christmas tree