Balloons. Blancmange & Blind Man's Buff

We're just going through the party list - streamers, paper chains, candles, cake, jelly, party games (need to wrap the Pass The Parcel), sweep the floor, blow up the balloons, iron the tablecloths and enjoy....




What's the betting we forget the invitations!

Wednesday Wobble

Oh no! We've forgotten the jelly! You can't have a party without a jelly... We'll have to go and ask the grocer, just like the advert tells us too.



Which flavour should it be?



Plain old jelly or jelly and custard? And what about the sprinkles?

Rolling Pins At The Ready...

Lots of food to cook today - we will definitely be baking the butterfly cakes, eclairs and cheese straws. We might be holding back on the rainbow blancmanges but love the sound of the individual fruit fools.

As for the cake we baked, well that needs icing but somehow the almond paste recipe using mashed potato powder doesn't sound that appealing ...

Bake Me A Cake As Fast As You Can...

So today we are mostly baking. You will find us amongst the sugar and spice and everything nice. If we find the candles it might be just be a case of having our cake and eating it too!

Walking Happily Ever After

Far too hot to be walking anywhere today of course, but this advert from 1950 brings back so many memories. If you have to go out for a stroll what could be better than in a pair of Mary Janes? Red of course!

A big 'thank you" to everyone who recently entered our "Jolly Good Read" Competition. We had a huge response and had great fun reading your suggestions, replying to your emails and jotting down book titles for us to read in the future. We were amazed to find that your book suggestions evoked so many memories for us both. It has been lovely talking to you via email about your books and having our rather addled brains jolted by books we really should have remembered to mention in the first place.
We felt it only fair to draw the winners out of a hat, vintage of course (we couldn't decide between my swimming hat or Dottie's shower cap) and three lucky people have had a bundle of books sent their way.
Our "Jolly Good Reading List" contains our favourite entries, books we have read, books we wished we'd mentioned and are now kicking ourselves for not remembering them in the first place and some we will definitely be reading in the future.
So, if you're stuck for some reading matter this summer, look no further:

The Diary Of A Provincial Lady - E M Delafield
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith (Milly's cockahoop that this got a mention!)
Frenchman's Creek - Daphne du Maurier (or indeed anything by Daphne du Maurier says Dottie)
ABC Murders - Agatha Christie, you can't beat a whodunnit to get those grey cells working
A Room With A View - E M Forster
A Box Of Delights - John Masefield (new to us sounds very good)
Mapp and Lucia - E F Benson (Milly is kicking herself for not mentioning this)

And for childhood memories
Milly Molly Mandy - Joyce Lankester Brisley
The Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
Famous Five Mysteries - Enid Blyton
Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild (how could we have forgotten this!)
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

Thank you all once again for taking part. If you find yourself in a comfortable chair in the shade sometime and feel like having a read of any of the above, please let us know what you thought.
Happy Reading!

Child's Play

When Dottie was a wee lass she would spend endless happy hours, playing with her dolls.. dolls of every size, shape, material, character...any doll basically as Dottie was besotted with dolls..full stop.
Several years on.. and we won't say how many.. far too scary.. she still has a passion for dolls, but alas, not so much time to play with them these days.

Dottie's first love affair began with her first doll which was a Russian Doll otherwise known as Matryoshka Dolls bought by her mother, from the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1960. Not just one doll but a whole family of them to play with ...



The mother doll has lost most of her vibrancy... but then so has Dottie!

Milly remembers, shamefacedly, cutting the hair of her dolls and daubing them in felt tip pens, giving them one of her own special makeovers. How many dolls have suffered the same fate we wonder?

Dolls come in all guises and are a constant fascination..

These charming little bisque dolls are known by several names such as Frozen Charlottes, Penny Dolls and Dime Store Dolls. They were made in between the years of 1800 and the 1930's and were made from one single piece of bisque china to be sold cheaply.



Small but perfectly formed ..




There were many different characters made at that time before an alternative material such as celluloid was used to create inexpensive toys and dolls like this motley selection .. Not sure about the poor lass who looks like she has been under the sun bed for too long!



This lovely little nurse is made from composition, widely used in the manufacture of dolls heads and limbs.. she is reputed to have a good bedside manner.



Milly & Dottie's share many amusing and happy memories of playing with their dolls.. the washing of clothes in a Chad Valley washing machine, Barbie's first and last boyfriend aka Ken, Sindy's extensive collection of matching accessories and her annoying little sister Patch. Tressy and her amazing flowing locks of real nylon hair, Tiny Tears and her incontinence problems and then there were those disturbing Cabbage Patch Dolls.
I wonder where they are now and how many stories they could tell about having biro tattoos and skinhead hairstyles!