Hello and happy Saturday!!!
WOO! Are we all having a good weekend so far? I hope so. I hope the sun is shining for you and that you're well and full of the joys of summer.
I have a lot of niggly brain stuff to process at the moment so rather than negotiate those pitfalls and pathways right now I thought I'd turn to happier times and share some more memory cards with you - and the accompanying ramblings, of course!
When I was a child I was extremely fortunate to have a creative and talented family who would make me toys to play with. Mum would sew, knit and crochet dolls and animals; my Grandma would knit pretty clothes for the dolls to wear, and my Grandpa would busy himself in his workshop, and wonderful wooden toys would be waiting for me every birthday and Christmas.
Any store bought toys were a treat and hugely treasured as much as any of the toys my family made for me. My biggest obsession for many years was my collection of Britains farm animals. I'd save my pocket money and spend hours - no, really, sometimes whole day - choosing which one to buy! Drove my poor mum MAD! She tolerated the addiction to small plastic critters because it controlled my super-lust for the shiniest things on the whole planet ever: STAR WARS TOYS! I mean, they were pretty much CRACK to a sci-fi fangirl child! There they'd be in the local toy shop, the biggest section devoted to them FOR YEARS, and week after week I'd float on stars and wishes towards them, and stand and drool!
See, my mum was one smart lady. She KNEW that the day I owned just one Star Wars figure it would start a hankering that our income simply coudn't support. Of course I never realised that at the time. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity one birthday rolled round and.....da daaa DAAAAAH! My first Star Wars toy! A figure? Nope. A spaceship? Nope? It was a LIGHTSABER! I was instantly a Jedi Knight, ready to battle the might of the Empire and defeat all things evil (including ewoks.....don't argue...they're evil). So. were there regrets? Weeeeellll the problem was that in our house we had HUGE round paper globe lamp-shades. Round like a moon.....or.....wait.....
THAT'S no moon...... that's a DEATH STAR! Yep....I have a bad feeling about this too....
Anyone wanna guess just how many of those lampshades survived without being repeatedly repaired with sticky tape? Yeah.... I destroyed a LOT of Death Stars! I often wonder whether mum had wished she'd just bought me Han Solo and risked the ensuing collect-o-mania!
But then, I don't have great track record with these store bought things... It started when I was given a plastic doll when I was a toddler. I called her Anna (another one) and dragged the poor creature everywhere. She had a knitted wardrobe - courtesy of Grandma's needles - and mad blonde hair which stuck up in all directions. NATURALLY I insisted on taking her into the bath with me. Problem? How could that be a problem? Well. Here's the thing... her manufacturers in their infinite weirdness had opted to put the 'air-escape' hole (which meant she could be squished and still return to he rotund original form) in her, well, let's say 'nether regions'. As a consequence, the unfortunate dolly would 'suck up' the bath water through said aperture and retain it perfectly throughout the drying process, ONLY leaking it back OUT once I'd returned to dragging her around the house. She weed on the carpets, she weed on the table and chairs, she weed on the newpaper, she weed EVERYWHERE! It wasn't long before her 'nap time' oddly coincided with my bath time, the leaking horror returning only when I gave her sneaky baths in the sink. I also figured out the cause of the issue, and discovered that if I aimed and squeezed hard enough I could also bath the cat!
When I was a little bigger, I was given a huge (or so it seemed at the time) orange Space Hopper toy. It was my first nemesis. It pretty much won every battle. I'd sit on it, grab the handle horns and bounce. Rather, IT would bounce.....off .....and I'd land on my face in a puddle. Dammit.....
By the time I was six I had a couple of fashion dolls - Pippa dolls they were....they don't make them any more but they were about six inches high with long hair and an infinite wardrobe. I loved them. I have NO idea what happened to them, which is a shame. When I was eight I was bought a Sindy doll, with her ENORMOUS head and ballerina outfit and a HORSEY to go with it (I prefered the horse if I'm honest!) At some point I was also given a Barbie. She was a bog-standard basic Barbie. It always annoyed me that these dolls never had underwear - all Nellie-no-knickers. I had my nan knitting pants for all of them! It's a fact that, no matter how well made the outfits were, they never sat well over enormous knitted knickers! I didn't play with these dolls much, but on one notable occasion, I set fire to Barbie. Yeah.... She just, well, flapped her foofy hair too near the fireplace (nothing at all to do with me *ahem*) and WOOF, she went up like a molotov cocktail. I panicked and sprinted through the house to extinguish the inferno in the salvation that was the toilet bowl. She met her undignified end with a sizzle and her eyes melted onto her neck. She was buried with full doll honours DEEP in the garden and the truth forever hidden from my mum. R.I.P. Barbie.
Anyone have any toy stories to tell? I have SO many more so it's one of those 'watch this space' situations! Please say hello and leave comments or your own fond/destructive toy/horror stories in the section below and don't forget to read my
GIVEAWAY post and enter if you want a chance to win my little book. It's been lovely to see you! I'm off now for a nice cup of tea so I'll see you soon, ok? Hugs and summer sun to all! - Shroo :) xxx
