I've spent (far too much) time recently looking online at vintage Fisher Price toys. It started with the realisation that the lovely Fisher Price horse that I had as a child, that Little Miss C is now playing with is over thirty years old. I hadn't really thought about it as that before. This particular French site (Little Vintage) has some lovely stuff on (including my horse!) and combined with the 1930s Housewife Challenge that may bloggers are currently undertaking it has really made me want to make sure that LMC gets to experience many of these old fashioned toys, rather ... read more
Nella Last in the 1950s
A comment from the lovely Kay on my post about Nella Last's Post War Diaries has made me realise that the final Nella Last book, based on her 1950s diaries, is now available. I had completely forgotten about this until now - that's what having a baby does for you! - so I'm rushing off to amazon to buy a copy: Nella Last in the 1950s: Further diaries of Housewife, 49. I'll let you know what it's like as soon as I can. (A complete aside - Amazon have very annoyingly changed how they do links to pictures of books making it so much harder for me to quickly include ... read more
The 1930s Housewife
If you like all things old fashioned and domestic and enjoyed my post about the Housewife's Handy Book, then make sure you take a trip over to Being a Mummy's Blog where she's been undertaking a 1930s Housewife Challenge. Fascinating to hear how she's got on and some great videos there too. ... read more
Garden characters
Finding the camera card reader means I can finally introduce you to a couple of new characters in our garden. More photos and accompanying words to follow shortly... ... read more
I’ve noticed…
... that if I don't blog then people don't bother to visit and read my blog. Funny that. Now, can anyone tell me where the card reader is for my camera? ... read more
Being Mummy C
Nine months ago Little Miss C and I arrived home together for the first time and since then we've been on quite a roller-coaster ride together. I'm not sure that I'm "qualified" enough to call myself "mummy" yet even though on paper that's what I am. It's strange how you come home from the hospital with a new title and yet no experience at all in your new job. In nine months I've certainly learnt a lot though: As soon as my backside hits the sofa LMC will always either wake up or require attention - I'm pretty sure she implanted some sort of ... read more
An afternoon at the zoo
For Mr C's birthday this year we had a family day out at Whipsnade Zoo and enjoyed it so much that I also signed up to become a "friend" of ZSL meaning that I can visit there or London Zoo for free as often as I like in a year. Entrance for under twos is free too - so both LMC and I were sorted and hence this afternoon we had a lovely couple of hours visiting the animals. She may not look very impressed about it, but LMC was actually fascinated to see elephants up close like this whilst they were exercised around the site. It may not be obvious from this picture, but ... read more
Strange Fits of Passion – Anita Shreve
Over the years I have read a large number of Anita Shreve's books and as far as I can remember I've enjoyed them all greatly. Strange Fits of Passion was no different in that sense. What was a bit different though was the style in which it was written. Rather than being a "straight story" instead the book is a collection of statements from the key people involved in the story and interview notes from the journalist who was writing about it. The final part of the book is then the final magazine article that came from all the statements and interviews. There are a few small ... read more
How warm is your house?
I've been meaning to blog about this for a few days now, but the warm weather outside has distracted me somewhat. It's hard to stay inside thinking about thermostat temperatures when you can be outside in the garden in the sunshine digging the veg plot over. I'm a bit of an obsessive as to what temperature our central heating is set to ever since we upgraded the heating in our (normally cold) 1928 semi to a system that has such a posh user control unit that it even has a "party mode" (I"m not sure what it does, but it has a picture of a martini glass next to the ... read more
It costs how much?
Sorry - I don't usually have a rant on here, but I'm afraid today I'm so stunned by something that I'm going to do just that. I'm quite a recent convert to Ecover products, but so far I have been pretty impressed with them all. The laundry detergent gets things clean and leaves a lovely fresh smell on our clothes, the delicates washing liquid isn't harsh on the hands when hand-washing wool, the washing up liquid is equally hand-friendly and the stain remover has been brilliant at removing even some of Little Miss C's worst stains. It therefore seemed ... read more