"Trudy"

This is Big Dude aka "Trudy". We are thinking of sellotaping a bow to her head and making her the Miss Gracie mascot. Who is Trudy? Trudy, originally named Big Dude, was the pet of a family in California in the 1960s. In 1984 and with their children grown, Big Dude came to live with our family. As I recall, my parents, in a leap of faith, left their four teenagers alone while they took a much deserved three week tour of China. Leaving four teenagers for three weeks was risky but they returned to find we had all survived and the house was intact although... two tortoises, a rabbit and a bird had been added to the existing menagerie of a dog, two cats and a tank full of fish. Our mother gave her usual reply of "as long as you feed them", we had either worn her down over the years or she was ridiculously tolerant. 

Most small pets don't have much of a shelf life but a tortoise I recommend. Not only do they hibernate for four months of the year, a towel and a box is all that is required from November to March, but they are particularly good at devouring the left over veg, carrying a beer can (we were teenagers) and are easy to catch. Big Dude was free to roam around the house and garden and often accompanied us to parties, the beach and she has even been sailing.

Big Dude is now known as "Trudy". We moved to England in 1994 and an animal loving friend with two young children offered Big Dude the perfect home in our absence. Big Dude had a new family and thanks to their research, we now know Big Dude is a girl - "Trudy". Eighteen years on, we are still in England and Trudy continues to live a charmed life in the California sunshine.

Pancakes, 7 Kids & the Neighbours

I have a crazy schedule and as you can see from the inventory levels, I have not squashed in the time to order hair bows - woops! I work freelance dabbling in my pre-child career. Recently the requests for me to work more have increased and rather good prospects have landed on my desk.  It is tempting; the set hours and regular pay but then I snap a photo like this:

Do I really want to miss Pancake Afternoon?

We're Back!

Whew! After two weeks of reading manuals and emailing Help (I could think of other words) Desks, Miss Gracie is finally trading online again.

Simple & Practical

Customers talk about our hair bows and often what they have to say is about the clips and the quality; how well they stay in and how beautifully they are made. We have taken the suggestion of creating sturdy, simple clips for school. A variation on the Chloe clip, a two prong pinch clip covered in simple saddle stitch ribbon. More colours plus mini dot ribbon will be arriving soon and best of all they are made in the UK!

Back to school...

A week ago we snapped this year's "First Day of School" photo and each day I plan to add it to the blog. Uniform ironed, hair tidy and in lovely Miss Gracie hair bows but what to write? Could I be a bit clever or funny? What made our first day back something someone, besides our family, would want to see or read about? So I left it. No photo, no "story" until this morning when I stepped over the Lego again. 

I have been stepping over this little Lego Mermaid and all the "bits" that accompany her for a week. Perched on her rock, gazing at a starfish while Merman gently rocks the Merbaby in the back ground (the dogs seem to be just "dogs", not "Merdogs"; no fishtails) and for some unknown reason the chosen play space is inconveniently, a doorway we all pass through regularly. This is my "back to school" photo. It is easy to remember the uniform, the hair bows, the smiles and the anticipation but I want to remember everything else. Long afternoons when we had time to "play", the round rock from Devon and the flat stone from Scotland, the Mer-Lego from her fourth birthday, the Pirate ship from the charity shop, the little starfish from California, Playmobil dogs and their tiny dog treats, the blue fleece blanket and the un-hoovered floor. 

Term time now and the toys are hardly touched as school, homework and activities fill our days. I will leave Mermaid and her family until the weekend but then it is back to the playroom. Mermaid will have to consider her playroom options; she can either borrow the Playmobil's camper van or move into the Regency Hotel with the Sylvanians.