Whee! Fun!
May. 22nd, 2004 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deborah_cA friend of ours has been busy for the last little while setting up a new business, a toy shop. Today we went to her grand opening.
Toy shops are one of those things that stick in my mind from childhood. We had two in our village, both packed with all sorts of different toys. One of them was at the bottom of the hill between our house and the village, so my sister and I would spend a lot of time with our noses pressed against the glass, gazing at all the treasures within. I suppose it's left me with a rather old-fashioned image of a "proper" toy shop, though; the kind with lots of different things, with interesting, imaginative toys, big interesting windows to peer through, places where you can go and try things out, rather than the more modern idea of a big warehouse full of lots of rather similar tacky multicoloured plastic mass-market toys. (A newspaper column did recently report a blue-tinged "fairy" Barbie provoking the writer's daughter into some rather different scenarios, like "Barbie gets hypothermia" and "Barbie has the Plague", so maybe there's hope even for those, though, but I digress...)
Anyway, our friend's shop is definitely the old-fashioned kind, and it's wonderful. So, we had a fun morning: we explored all the interesting toys they've found; the children got to meet the local Blue Peter presenter who opened the shop, and then to go and play at various stalls and games set up for them on the village green. Sometimes it's really nice to live in a village that's managed to keep its own sense of local community! The children also really enjoyed getting to cycle into the village and back: the girls only really mastered riding without stabilisers this spring, and this was our first time out as a family on the roads. (Actually, everyone but me was on the roads; my bike's being repaired at the moment, or probably more accurately failing to be delivered back after being repaired, but never mind!)
Once we got back, I had a lovely afternoon playing in the garden with the children and generally lounging around; then a nice talk and cuddle with number one child after dinner, and more Harry Potter being read to me as a bedtime story by the two six-year olds. All simple pleasures, but a really nice, relaxing day; wouldn't it be nice if they could all be like that?
Toy shops are one of those things that stick in my mind from childhood. We had two in our village, both packed with all sorts of different toys. One of them was at the bottom of the hill between our house and the village, so my sister and I would spend a lot of time with our noses pressed against the glass, gazing at all the treasures within. I suppose it's left me with a rather old-fashioned image of a "proper" toy shop, though; the kind with lots of different things, with interesting, imaginative toys, big interesting windows to peer through, places where you can go and try things out, rather than the more modern idea of a big warehouse full of lots of rather similar tacky multicoloured plastic mass-market toys. (A newspaper column did recently report a blue-tinged "fairy" Barbie provoking the writer's daughter into some rather different scenarios, like "Barbie gets hypothermia" and "Barbie has the Plague", so maybe there's hope even for those, though, but I digress...)
Anyway, our friend's shop is definitely the old-fashioned kind, and it's wonderful. So, we had a fun morning: we explored all the interesting toys they've found; the children got to meet the local Blue Peter presenter who opened the shop, and then to go and play at various stalls and games set up for them on the village green. Sometimes it's really nice to live in a village that's managed to keep its own sense of local community! The children also really enjoyed getting to cycle into the village and back: the girls only really mastered riding without stabilisers this spring, and this was our first time out as a family on the roads. (Actually, everyone but me was on the roads; my bike's being repaired at the moment, or probably more accurately failing to be delivered back after being repaired, but never mind!)
Once we got back, I had a lovely afternoon playing in the garden with the children and generally lounging around; then a nice talk and cuddle with number one child after dinner, and more Harry Potter being read to me as a bedtime story by the two six-year olds. All simple pleasures, but a really nice, relaxing day; wouldn't it be nice if they could all be like that?
