Saturday, January 8, 2011

Goldilocks & the Three Bears - as told by John Donne

The Small Child and I were at Granny's yesterday, this being easier for both of us while my leg is in plaster. Wandering round, she chanced upon an old copy of John Donne's Love Poems, one of those Penguin 60s they were selling in the mid-90s. This, thinks the Small Child, is great little book and she promptly starts "reading" the story of Goldilocks to Granny out of it. Granny lost it a bit, but not wanting the Small Child to see her in stitches, tells her to go read it to mummy.

I suppose I can be glad that it wasn't Alan Clark's Diaries. There's a copy of that floating around somewhere and all.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Hee-re comes the Wagon!

The wanderly, wanderly Wagon! Here comes the Wagon!

No prizes for guessing what we've been watching recently. Yep, that classic of Irish childhood, Wanderly Wagon. The Small Child adores it. Needless to say, Himself, who was reared on it, does too. I suspect that Uncle Skinny, who gave it to the Small Child, had his big bro in mind when he bought it. I must say, it's even grown on me.

Vintage 1970s, it has sets similar to the wobbly ones beloved of Doctor Who. There is cutting edge 70s computer technology, and a bunch of puppets, of whom Sneaky Snake (or Snicky Snek, as the Small Child used to call him) is the household favourite.

And it has Frank Kelly, aka Father Jack. Apparently he ad-libbed the majority of his lines in the show. This led to such memorable lines as "Doctor Who? Nein, Doctor Who ist BBC! Dr Astro ist RTE!"

But possibly the item I love most in this show is Dr Astro's time travel machine, which runs on runny custard. Blue runny custard, topped up with popcorn. A triumph of the clearance sales in whichever was the closest department store to Donnybrook, I recently counted the following components:

A tea strainer
A number of wooden spoons
A wire frame milk bottle holder with milk bottle and dial showing how many bottle were required the following day
Quite a number of vegetable peelers
An equal amount of spoons
A collection of orange glass canisters and bowls, all self illuminated via standard electric globes
A vegetable basket
A cutlery holder
A funnel
A lot of pegs
A dustpan brush
A wine rack

Truly, they don't make TV like that any more.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Then Dora went exploring

The Small Child has now decided that her name is Dora, after she went exploring with Himself yesterday, which included a crossing of the Harbour Bridge. Granny raised her eyebrows at this last one, having been reliably informed that the expedition only went as far as South Mona Vale headland. Which it did. The Harbour Bridge in question is a small wooden structure over a little ravine. But it was all very exciting.

She has also, for some reason, decided that she must sleep with all her tights in the bed. Being hampered by the cast, I cannot magic them back into the appropriate drawer when she is asleep. There is also a torch. I discovered the torch when I sprung the Small Child going into our bedroom with it lit. The Good Lord Above only knows where she got it from. But torch is now back with mummy torch on the top shelf of the press, having had a wonderful holiday.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Loving the Lemur


King Julien, that is. From The Penguins of Madagascar, a children's show based on the movie Madagascar. Not that I've seem the movie or anything. But I'm growing quite fond of the TV show.

The small child adores it. She is having Penguin obsession right, left and centre. All other shows are foresaken for the opportunity to watch the penguins and their lemur sidekicks who include King Julien, a cheerfully amoral lemur with a middle European accent, a large ego, a bouncy castle and a habit of getting others to rescue him, in particular the Penguins, Skipper, Rico, Kowalski and Private.

I'm now also back at work. Ho hum. Thank feck I only have to work four days a week from now on.