January Mitts!

I'm trying to knit a project a month this year. In my head, they'll be going into a box for Christmas presents although I think there'll be some birthday gifting going on too. So here's the first. A pair of 'Suzie's Reading Mitts' in Sublime Cashmerino Aran. This was a nice pattern, with an interesting way of getting the pretty picot edge (a yarn over row folded at the end). They were fun to knit, although a lack of concentration on my part means one is about half an inch longer than the other. I will explain that to the receiver, it would be a bonus if I can find someone with one wrist longer than the other. I don't think you can really tell though.

The yarn is squishy-softie-fabulous. A combo of wool, silk and probably some other bits, I'd love to knit with this more often. But I'm not rich, so I can't. It's a nice yarn for a little gift project like this though. What do you think?

Cake for breakfast?

Bang goes the New Year's diet!

My lovely husband found a Christmas present he'd bought a while ago and forgotten to give to me, so he planned a little surprise. It's a very cute cardboard cake stand: he confessed he thought he'd got a real bargain on a china one until it arrived in the post - bless.

So he stayed up late last night to bake some fairy cakes, in what I think was his first attempt, and set it up for me this morning.

So the children and I have had fairy cakes for breakfast. Oh well, there's the rest of the day to eat fruit, eh?

Don't they look pretty?

Sat there on the shelf in Daphne's room, my Enid Blyton books look vintage-tastic with their chalky colours and retro illustrations, but they do make me a little uneasy.

I read Blyton extensively as a child, from the Famous Five through the school books to the fairytales. Famous Five (and the Secret Seven) held a ploddy, bread-and-butter place in my reading. I'm sure I enjoyed them at the time but they never set my world alight. The school books, Mallory Towers for example, may as well have been labelled fairytales, so far removed were they from the life I led. I enjoyed these more, though as a class-aware adult who cringes at anything 'posher' than a Waitrose carrier bag, their appeal is much more limited these days.

It's for these reasons that the shelves hold mainly the fairy stories. The Faraway Tree, The Wishing Chair and the collections of short stories about brownies, fairies and goblins which were always my favourites.

But I have a dilemma.

It's well known that Blyton's work is less than PC to say the least. I've never accepted that just because something was 'of it's time' it excuses continued exposure to very offensive material. And some of this stuff could be considered very offensive. Racist,and with questionable attitudes about child discipline. But nostalgia draws me to them. Do I read them to my children? No (although in honesty I tried once, but the antiquated language and subject matter rendered them incomprehensible to my audience). I have to accept that whilst they are on the shelf, they may be read by the little people. I guess I will offer some sort of precursory explanation whilst they are small, but what shall I say?

I have no point to make here, am genuinely a bit torn. But I do know I would be sorry to lose these from the shelves if it ever came to it.