Christmas 2018

The day is finally came and I was out of my jim jams and into my pinafore dress, shirt, school tie and grey socks ready to get some breakfast sorted before opening the presents.

Starting this Christmas edition like last year made 'on the hoof', Elgar has always called with most my recordings being from the very late 1970's to the 1980's.

This newish acclaimed one, came out in 2016 offers two works I did not have and adds them in both stereo and surround sound in Super Audio cd quality (playable also in regular cd).
It will no doubt be treasured.

The Dandy is the always the Dandy, one a few comics I had as child and while sadly it no longer comes out weekly, it does have summer specials and this annual that stay with the original stories and indeed do even have reprints of cartoon strips from past years

One difference this year is I didn't get the Beano annual because there has been a big change in how the more traditional cartoon series have been drawn, in some such as Dennis the Menace written so he doesn't actually menace that messes up the whole backdrop to the character and a move toward so-called political correctness in the newer stories.

Instead I opted for this compilation issued to mark the 65th anniversary of Minnie The Minx  which consists of reprints of classic adventures as is which is a tribute to a heroine of mine.

I did however pick up the 2018 Christmas special edition which as 68 pages and printed more like a softback magazine.

lt fits in where I'd of had the comic editions across Christmas showing had I'd of had them being a good example of where the comic is at today.

I got the compilation in the "Classic" series entitled Food fights with stories on that theme from the Dandy and Beano archives with stories involving Korky the cat, Winker Watson, Dennis The Menace and others I loved as a boy.

 Finally a new anime for me to watch in blu ray and regular dvd too.

And another but this one is just in blu ray.

This was a much talked about anthropomorphic animated film from 2016 that I had as a 'stocking filler' on Blu-Ray.

Because I am a adult little gurl I had a couple of pairs of David Luke gym knickers for when I'm away and we do sports.

I also had some money and vouchers.

We had a turkey roast for dinner and a Christmas pudding that I microwaved with cream afterward before I cleared the table and went off for a walk.

I hope everyone has had an enjoyable Christmas.

On Gender

It is heading towards Christmas and  new year and bearing in mind  I established a Tumblr earlier in the year you start to hear much discourse around the who question of identities and who belongs in what camp as it were.

I have never made any claim to be anything other than me even if at times I had been playing catch up with all the terms and definitions as I lack much of that to try to explain just where I fit in with all of it.

Despite the best attempts of others put impose a narrative more suited to them on me, the one thing I have learned this year is I unequivocally identify as a boy at the biological sexual level and is a part of my social gender.

I have no desire to be or become a female because I like my body and moreover my feminine side is uber female and goes off the normal female scale.

It is however quite true to say some of my interests and traits  are traditionally seen as feminine which was an issue certainly in my schoolboy years although today some are seen more acceptable for boys to do or pursue.

I will not dodge what some have seen as the elephant in the room which is to do like to gender present at variance to that of boys in skirts and dresses more suiting of child rather than that of an adult.

That can show in wearing the skirts and dresses of  school uniform traditionally associated with girls at times.

I am also a gurl with a kawaii crush liking cute t shirts and socks who loves wearing soft pretty and  frilly panties under hur skirts.

Some have suggested that those feminine sides mean I am of the female gender or I'm a transgendered person.

People do when it comes to social roles and interests differ when measured against stereotypical norms so the sporty girl or the ballet loving boy are still girl and boy respectively.

To me that's more routed in gender roles and expectations as much as sadly some people are left feeling "it would be easier if I was [insert opposite gender].

The nature of transsexuality is however it's not just the leaving of the social trappings of gender but implies you also wish to leave the body you were in because you want/desire the physical form of the gender you feel you are and not just at the point of wanting to 'fit in'.

People have defied convention expressing themselves or even presenting outwardly as a gender different to the one recorded without any surgery sometimes for short periods on occasions for most of their lives.

In my case I know I'm neither male or female by gender and actually I fall more under sissy gurl even with a few variants within that which I discovered some years ago.

I today call myself a Sissy Gurl or go under feminine boy as any grown up sexuality is totally different from your sense of gender anyway.

Being free to be the sissy gurl you are

 

When I was growing up in the 70’s, the goal was to achieve a society in which a male or a female might do or become anything they wanted, without their sexual identity being questioned. Boys could play with dolls, girls could climb trees, anyone could wear anything they wanted or do anything they wanted, without it impacting what we now call “gender.” It was a great goal. 

I could and have every right to wear a skirt and to play with dolls as part of expressing the more feminine side  of me as much as I could the rough and tough side cos they're all me.

If you want to get a feel for what that movement was about, listen to Marlo Thomas’ , Free to Be You and Me, a famous series of songs recorded to help introduce children to this concept. Boys can cry, girls can compete in races…nothing you say or do changes what you inherently are.

Our conversation about gender appears to have taken a step backwards. Once more we are talking about ‘male’ and ‘female’ behaviours, and suggesting that if one gender does something associated with the other gender, the gender must be wrong. Once more we are creating boxes to define and contain gender identity, and if you step outside the box, it is deemed a denial of that identity.

Some men like to wear women’s clothing. Some girls disdain traditional “feminine” activities. The first group are still men, and the second still girls. We do them a terrible disservice when we read deeper things into that. Not every pair of high heels on a guy is a cry for help.

A trans man feels like he has always been a male, just in a female body. He has always felt like a male, regardless of what he wears. A trans woman has always felt female. Sometimes this manifests in traditional activities, and certainly clothing is used to help present the correct gender, but at its core it is a deeper, more fundamental issue than what toys one plays with or what clothes one is wearing.

I did have a love of flowers and some collectable porcelain dolls of various girls which in that era wasn't very cool to admit to other boys which was a shame, I liked to wear skirts as much as shorts but that didn't mean I had a deep seated need to change my sex because I was happy to be a biologically boy and to be a sissy gurl when it comes to gender role and presentation.

I have the right to be treated as sissy gurl and for hur adult sides needs to be met.

Role playing?

There are times when I do feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall  of one one them is when it is people insist this thing I write about is just a role play that I elect to play some of the time.

Now it isn't that there's anything wrong of itself with role playing someone who is younger although people do argue about how far and in what context it should be if that is what you feel (and clearly there is a need as it is being met commercially).

No, it's that for some of us it is more going back in your headspace so you are responding as if you were that child or for people like me that in reality a chunk of you is always in a child-like mode and that in effect you are an adult sized child.

Now interesting at a mainstream spanking site of all places there was a link placed to an online magazine that used a actual 1936 test for Emotional Age that people such as psychologists did use to assess the emotional maturity of people as distinct from going just by chronological age.

As it happened I did it which involved answering with a Yes or No a series of twenty-five questions based on certain scenarios, a marking scheme and a calculation to convert the marks to assessed Emotional Age.

The result I got from this was shockingly close to how I had assessed in my own head my my emotional age as I know to be very truthful I am 'immature' in certain respects and not able to function at an adult level.

The test score made me 11.3 years old.  I have maintained for a good number of years I was around  10 and not older than 12 simply because I never 'felt' older, able to carry what anyone older could and it was obvious even in childhood that was so.

Now let's go back to that assertion and again consider if I am 'age playing' here or not?

NO-what is going on is the handling by the standards more of my own era of a 'child' in effect -me- by adults who of necessity have to be parental, have to do things and set boundaries, reinforcing them strictly.

That's the goddam truth.

Introducing Selena - from christmas of the past

This week we're going forward into the past here by looking at something I had for Christmas but in nineteen seventy-nine instead which as anyone who lived through that time knows also was turbulent politically.

The cold war was very much still on but for all of that trade with what was the U.S.S.R was fairly common place and ownership of soviet era cars, cameras and electrical goods was popular partially down to price compared with West European and Japanese models but also because being in production for longer they did appeal to traditionalists.

The Vega Selena B212 was unlike anything made by Panasonic, Grundig or Sony in a number of ways such as it featured a wooden cabinet which was unheard off aiding the sound.

You just didn't get that then anywhere else.

An unusually feature was the use of a mechanical rotating Turret that had been a common fixture of televisions featuring VHF reception to change the wavebands which again was unusual for a domestic rather than one designed for radio operators in that it had five short wave bands that typically were used for international broadcasting as  the signals could travel thousands of miles.

The one criticism that could be made was the tuning scale was only marked in a fairly rudimentary way but in terms of sensitivity it was surprisingly good and it did feature a signal strength indicator that could be illuminated.

Frequencies are marked in metres except for FM where they use megahertz.

The waveband in use was indicated directly through a cut out on the tuning scale.

That was major appeal to me as listening to short wave transmissions is something I did from an early age so to have it on fairly portable radio - weighing four kilos it is fairly portable and not as light as most of competition was an advantage.

This is the 'gubbins' of it - the main assembly where on the bottom right you can see the turret with its coil packs, on the top  the old school but still good silver hatted transistors because no integrated circuits were used, plus on the far left mains cord connector, D.I.N. connector for monaural record and replay from tape recorders and a earphone socket.

 As well on the turret is the AM antenna and ground connectors although for AM there is a ferrite rod and for FM and shortwave a telescopic antenna built in on the top of the case.

It was relatively inexpensive too so to have something that performed well, looked like a piece of furniture and portable was great.

It was the radio I listened to the Abba concert from Wembley on that Christmas and one reason why I fondly remember having it.

A reflective day

 

Much of the last month or so has been a bit like this walking around the country lanes, taking in all the sounds, sights and smells of the outdoors because in a lot of way I feel I need that total experience to be at the best I can.

That's why in someway I'm not a good online buddy if you expect me to hang around  and sometimes the deficits in how I see things not least my ability to 'read' lead situations where I'm feeling very much in the headlamps, dazzled, confused and with an overriding instinct to protect myself.

I prefer more group or face to face interaction really and yes I like to wear skirts doing so as a feminine boy for a while now.

Sparkle In Your Eye:

When I look at you, I see the sparkle in your eye, 

It tells me what's true and never tells a lie.

The sparkle in your eye, 

Even when you are sad, never does it cry.

Whenever it expresses its feelings, 

It tells me straight away, 

What you are stealing, 

Without doing a survey.

It tells when you'll fall, 

So I'll catch you like a ball.

It's the sparkle in your eye that says, 

You'll make it in the next couple of days.

The sparkle in your eye, 

Never, ever shall it die. 

By Ulveena Aitzaz from Lahore

Poetry was one thing I really enjoyed at school, reading learning and reciting it in front of the class, traditional European as well as Japanese styles.

Spooky weekend

This weekend last I was away for what is a highlight in littles life, parties, and in particular the Halloween one staged by a friend here in the Midlands which for me meant a short train journey and a lift.

Although compared with certain other events I attend this was comparatively short in terms of days away, obviously bringing things to literally add to the party soon takes up space so I needed a full complement of tote bags and case.

Having arrived back, the first task was to get the fire light and a brew on because three more people were staying overnight on the Friday after finding a good spot tm to put my stuff as with fourteen of us being here for Saturday and Sunday space in the front room in particular would be at a premium.

Some things I brought for Saturday's buffet  were taken out and the Pumpkin the host had brought for me saving trying to carry that on the train was paid for.

As well by prior arrangement I'd be sleeping in their so it made sense to put what I needed at hand but not in other folks way.

I sorted out my advance Christmas card pile for folk and got out my Hello Kitty white and pink plushie.

It wasn't long before the first two guests arrived which as our host was otherwise  detained I let in and by the time the last one of the day had made it it was time to get some food going.

We had a big pork chop with well cooked rind, roast potatoes from the garden which I washed for the host and another helped with vegetables.

The remainder of the evening was taken up with much conversation punctuated with bangs from a local firework display.

Come Saturday morning I was up fairly early in a grey jumper and wine coloured pleated skirt ready to take my pills and fix a spot of breakfast after rounding up stray cups and glasses.

 As people were coming later on, I had a few things to do of which one was to help out and that involved converting Gingerbread persons into Gingerbread Girls by decorating them.

I used eatable cake icing to add eyes, tops and skirts for them 

I made a number of variations on a theme which included one as a girl soccer player.

By about One pm most people had arrived so our Host and friend set on making Burger with fried onion and to which another and brought salad together with sauces to add to suit your own taste.

Getting on fur just after Two pm the last four guest had arrived in time for theirs.

Soon it was time for Fred and Florence's Exceeding Good Food Hunt which was a kind of treasure hunt out of doors where you had to find one item for which there was a prize which then lead to clue for the next and so on until we got to the last one where everyone had something - for me it was a caramel filled chocolate bar.

The next event was also out of doors, namely Pumpkin Carving to which several people had brought various tools to get into the pumpkin with and most of us remembered first time to save the top we'd cut out ready for the tea light to be fitted.

Finished mine looked a bit like this.
We went indoors to clean up and otherwise get ourselves ready for the cold buffet that included Pizza, pork pies, salad and a home made trifle with cream.

By just after 19:00 it was time to put on warmer attire as it was time for our bonfire to be lit a safe distance from us which was a good idea as it turned a bit breezy. I had my Puma trackpants on.

It roared loudly with much crackling as people held sparklers waving them about.
Then we started our firework display oohing and aahing to the vibrant colours and sounds.

After a short break it was time for the music quiz which had food connections where a tune was played and you had to guess the answer with the winner being given a Cabbage.

The was much lively conversation until just before one in the morning when I got to bed.
I was as ever the first up and dressed this time in a green jumper - our host likes green apparently - ready to take my tablets and have a cup of tea as gradually everyone got up and about.

We had a bacon sandwich  to keep us going before we went to a gastro-pub within walking distance for a meal together before we all set off as some people had three hours or more to travel and it is a nice way to end a weekend together.

I had a turkey roast with trimmings and sticky toffee treacle with cream which arrived very efficiently given it was really busy with diners plus regular drink trade.
Upon arrival back at our hosts venue, everyone said their goodbyes before we meet again next year.

It was a fun packed weekend for this adult little girl.

Seeing Green

We have looked at grey as a colour but a popular one for both Jerseys and Skirts is green of which is fairly typical example of the more basic sort.

Senior ones tend to be a bit long with a knife edge pleat at the front mirroring traditional secretarial wear rather than this Juniors version, fully elasticated and pull up

I do have a matching jersey that goes with a polo shirt for the state Junior school look as it rare unlike my own day to wear shirts/blouses and ties or over a box pinafore dress which little sissy gurls like me look good in.

Getting that cubby feeling

This last week has been interesting with the usual mix of a few decades past and the current intermingled as I found memories of original childhood experienced in my second as that child in an adult body.

It has also been an interesting one for being out exploring nature, watching, feeling and hearing it intently.

I have observed the habits of Squirrels, watched on a daily basis the changes in the hue and colour of the leaves on all our local trees and a good many insects.
Indeed actually on Saturday, I observed at close quarters hundreds of Ladybirds out in the fall sun that must of emerged.

An example of the Harlequin Ladybird I saw is this one which I took a picture of while a wasp seemed to take an interest in my hat!

Wild berries were also out too although normally it is a little late in the season to see them.

While I can never be invested into the cubs nor actually be awarded the badges, this week I feel the sense of being a scout in spirit learning more their woodcraft  and scouting skills such as observation while having fun.

While at the time Cubs was the only option, really my resumption would be exclusively as a Brownie, a Brownie In Spirit with all the girl friendly traditions, promises and beliefs as a gurl.

That is where I belong and I shall work on.

The very things that are passported into the remainder of your life after that stage even after moving from having a boyhood to being a sissy gurl still benefit you.

Tv shows of the past

 

Tuesday October 16th  marked the 60th Anniversary of the British children's tv program Blue Peter that was very much a part of my childhood and I watched the one hour special edition.

Monday October 1st saw the death of Geoffrey Hayes who was the parental adult figure on the commercial ITV Network show Rainbow from 1974 through 1992 keeping Zippy,George and Bungle in order  which was supposed to be for pre-schoolers but many of us who watched were older, catching it at Lunchtimes in an era most of us didn't  didn't have video recorders.

The show had segments and one was Rod, Freddy and Jane's folk music slot which was enjoyable to listen too and matched the folk revival in the adult world in the 70's.

Age Dysphoric rant

 

Ever notice how people react with a disgusting and unwarranted amount of vitriol towards those who "don't act their age"?

Seriously, what is it about being immature that causes such nastiness in people? As long as your so-called immaturity isn't hurting anyone, why do they care? 

Everyone knows to be kind and understanding towards people with disabilities, mental illness, and so on, but have they ever stopped to think that maybe immature people can't help it either? 

So WHAT if I become obsessive over celebrities and fictional characters? So WHAT if you deem me to be "too old" for that kind of stuff? 

Why do you have to treat me like human garbage just because my interest and personality is that of a person younger than the number of years I've been alive?

It may be true for people whose current bone age up to thirty to be given some latitude having interests in Fandoms, celebrities and perhaps following some interests from their teens but my generation was pushed onto serious topics, having plushies ripped from you, prized toys prized out of your hands, discouraged from having posters.

You had to read "grown up" books which was a bloody laugh when I didn't have the reading comprehension to do so, wanting to dress as a character in film or book was called "Silly" and childish.

Just goes to show how horribly most people treat those who buck the status quo.

It gets so bad for some of us that we’re called p*dos and people say that we “act that way” to attract kids somehow. I had a disrupted childhood and have always had a fixation on toys and arts and crafts and cute things. I experience involuntary age regression and am autistic and I’m tired of being seen as cringe, creepy and even predatorial. It hurts so much. I’m just a big kid trying to relax.

That's the thing. They assume that about us, and then all rational conversation shuts down–like they don't even want to hear anything further. 

Like, how messed up in the head do you have to be that your mind automatically goes there when you hear about trans-age people? To me it sounds like THEY'RE the ones with the problem, not us. And besides, how could we be (those people) when we are kids ourselves??? As kids (with the exception of maybe the teenagers among us), it's not even possible for us to experience sexual attraction of any kind!!! We are literally CHILDREN! Stop trying to steal our innocence and turn us into monsters.

A spot of colouring

The weekend was not particularly conducive to going out with strong winds on Friday so with even bigger and stong people than myself struggling I needed to stay indoors which as you probably aware isn't something I like at all, being an outdoor boy.

One thing you can do when it is like this is colour and so I had my colouring books out on Friday.

Because I read girls books I did have and coloured this Jacqueline Wilson one based on her stories which I love to read.

Here's one I'm working on based on Brownies, the younger side of Girl Guiding which is part of the big scouting family I love.

 Normally when I colour I use Staedtler colour pencils available in the Noris Club 36 colour pack as they respond well to different pressures for shading and don't easily break in the way some cheaper ones found in convenience stores do.

They also sharpen well.

That illustration is from the a football colouring book I bought and love working through.

The Planet Suite

Seeing this years Proms season ended September 10th thoughts went back to composers of the WW1 era.

 I have a good number of cds by by the mystic Gustav Holst and spotted this 2008 recording by the late Richard Hickox in a series of his Orchestral works he started and whose baton has been picked up by Sir Andrew Davis

This Chandos Super Audio cd has the popular Ballet from "The Perfect Fool" conceived as a an opera but written to ballet form in 1922 plus the much less popular but worthy The Lure ballet and Golden Goose choral ballet together with The Morning of the Year ballet the last two being composed in 1926.

I found this recording most enjoyable. 

 

A cats eye view

It was a cooler wet return this week as the political sorts were plotting and counter plotting over "Brexit", people on the South Eastern Coast of the States were warned about the upcoming hurricane Florence and I felt a bit under the weather.
That's why I'm doing a photo essay thing this week as I get to normal.

 I really love this picture where the cat appears to take the little girls photograph on the medium format film camera (which is why it's square shaped) looking through the viewfinder.
He's really clever.

 I'm a sucker for anything Hello Kitty and this show time star sequine dress is so cute I'm just dissolving looking at it.

 Things around Hello Kitty and teenage girls can get a a bit more complicated as they look for greater sophistication to match their more mature mindset but this just pulls it off with a mod to the Goth Style

 I don't personally see anything at all wrong with wearing female shorts especially where they are cut and even pleated to be so obviously feminine in appeal with plenty of air around the legs and making the most of your hips.

While here they are shown bare legged there's no reason not to team them with longer socks or tights.

As well, I also got around to reading Little Women although I'd had it for a while which is a timeless coming of age story of the four March sisters set in the post Civil War period in the States as though through childhood to adulthood, helped by their mother learning to navigate what it means to be a young woman from sibling rivalry to love, loss and marriage.

Heroes

If you were to say who really was my forever little hero it would have to Christopher who at the time was protesting the shorts ban at his school by wearing a skirt.

That kind of step isn't uncommon in British high schools who seemed to have the most rigid inflexible kind of middle management types running them that ignore what happens in the real world so skirted protests happen while people such as postal workers have a variety within the uniform.

Getting back to what this blog is really about he was more the kind of boy at that time I was and felt because for wearing a skirt which is associated with girls and women (and thus allowed!), the presentation is otherwise male.

His socks are just above the ankle ones common with boys and plain grey, there is no attempt to look like a thirteen year old girl just a boy happy to wear a skirt and to me when it just comes to presentation why not?

This isn't  transsexuality just being a boy in a skirt, although as matured in my teens I realized I was a sissy gurl and the gender roles are just a different element that match with how you see you, not anything else and their agendas.

Gender Spaces and the sissy

Another week and one update to Pale Moon and that still hasn't cured the browser of freezing over so we're still in Firefox which as much as I don't like the interface does work very well.

Spaces are a contentious issue as anyone on Tumblr knows only too well and some of that also applies into off line life too as well as what people do when we allow them into our own.

One area I think worth talking about is gender spaces where yes most of us say people should be free to mix with whoever they want, take part in activities together and not be barred from an activity just because of their gender. 

This you might think is the end product of decades of arguments won when it comes to equal opportunities and as such the very last word but today it's not.

Unlike perhaps a few of you I've been in the work place and it isn't uncommon for female employees to actually have their own social groups that they keep to just women going out together or spending time at each others places.

Even in 2018 here in Great Britain there are Universities that only accept women being founded expressly for female higher education and women have voted to keep them that way because they prefer an all female ethos and under English Law at at least a private members club can be all female only too.

Part of the argument is it is nice to have a place just to talk and share things with without men around who as nice as they are would  change the feel just  by being there and maybe inhibit conversations people need.

The same can be true for Women and Girls but where does it leave people like me, sissies with some connections through upbringing to the experience of men and boys and yet in so many other ways drawn to the world of girls and women cos we're so feminine?

As someone who is age dysphoric in this new-old life given my interest in and love of scouting connected activities it isn't the oh so real issues of children who don't fit into the pigeonholes of boy and girl when it comes to being it it - Girl Guiding or Scouts - it's also within my recreated version I belong too.

All I know is Scouts as in Cubs, that's comfortable as it goes but I'd sooner wear something more feminine outside hiking so outside hiking would it make more sense to wear a period brownie uniform?

It's all stuff I'm mulling over.

Perhaps more give and take on gender spaces rather than battle cries might better suit our needs?

Back in time

 A warm start to the week on the other blog after the usual discourse around different groups on Tumblr saying "If you're a friend of theirs, you can't be a friend of mine" and "if you don't join us you're a nobody who won't be allowed to go nowhere" that can get tiring.

In dealing with that and blogs listed as disrespecting others wishes blocking them, I spotted something that was rather good.

Sadly lacking original artist credits, this illustration is charming in its child-like state suggesting to me they were clearly in a regressed state of mind at the time as the writing is very much of the 'child within' lacking any adult sophistication.

That to me is very much what this thing is about whatever props we may use and however we may present-getting back to that childhood state, enjoying the moment without an adult care in the world.

In her world the teddy bears are going for a walk hand in hand caring and looking out for each other, her response to them will be that of a child.

That is why protecting littles is a very important thing because when we are in that state our adult guard isn't around so we don't do 'adult' things  and any Caregiver shouldn't push them on you.

Boundaries DO matter.

Sharing all

I was brought up partially at a boarding school which is a very different set up from day school where you may have siblings but you are not with your schoolfriends all the time and you go out to be with them.

Inevitably you shared a dormitory so you got changed and took off all your clothes to get to bed in front of each other so you know who had a mole 'there' and they know my spine was twisted, so much so it gives me gyp. 
 

We also talked while getting dressed, in bed before lights out and in each others dorms apart from the Common Room so we were very much had emotional intimacy because we all know everything about each other which made for very deep relationships.

The appeal of Lego is almost universal and I dare say many of us have items  in our collections but where do you think such  a fascination might end?

Many of us have limited space, it may be say your dorm, a bedroom or perhaps a small flat but could it contain such a mania is something that you might wish to consider as even with the advantage of of being able to have a whole room to make and display your models in.

We just just might need to limit our wants to end up with something we can use.

It's hardly surprising then that Boyhood was and is the biggest single influence on my childhood as much as I'd of rather things were different.

I so would of loved to had annuals like this in my dorm but back then it just wouldn't of worked out as much they were me.

Ready to return

We're working in Firefox this week from the Windows Laptop as Pale Moon is having issues that makes it unreliable on Google's sites and touch and go on Tumblr too so I'm kind of hoping to see a bug fix this week.

 There's little escaping it from the press advertisements, the notices in uniform shops and increasingly offers from both online retailers plus certain supermarkets, the New Term is upon us.

In my world I'll be returning come September in grey as I have had a grey school jumper with a V neck which after all this medical stuff since July has preoccupied my time apart from how it's left me.

It should go well with my grey, green and black pleated skirts although unlike her in the picture I don't own a traditional leather satchel and indeed remember them fading out for briefcases or hold alls.

The worst thing you could ever have for carrying books in was the Duffle Bag which easily distorted and rubbed the corners of text books to the point some schools prohibited them for the damage they could cause.

The trouble was of course they were really intended for sports kit being made from a canvas material and not books so had no corners just a long tube shape with a drawstring that pulled the top closed.

Anyway I have my music ready to take away with sorted so bye for now!

Play and what we play with

 I'm feeling better this week so I thought I'd write something a little different than usual.

 Something I started noticing several years back when I first started buying my own stuffies and especially dolls was a difference between what some bought them for and what I did before getting involved around the world of littles.

One of things I found odd was what I later called the "collectors mentality" where people bought them in the original packaging and kept them permanently in that state, boxed up at best on shelf or otherwise in a storeroom.

To me they seemed to see them as objects that admittedly they liked  but the bais was clearly on maintaining that collectors item look and monetary value to the point they weren't handled and cherished even if they were intended for children who would play with them.

Personally, I buy my dolls and stuffies to play with although my porcelain ones are because of their delicateness are more handled than played with.

I take them out to sit by, hug whenever I feel the 'need' to hug or carry on in my hand around the house or wherever I am staying. I create stories featuring them which I then play with in real time together freely.

That's for me apart from those 'special dolls' they are my toys which as an adult child I play with in much the same way that I did as a child and as some saw me recently even gently rocking a pram with dollies.

It's what I get from playing with them that matters more to me than that whole collectors thing. 

Card Games from the past

While I am recovering here from an infection and generally speaking not really up to doing terribly much, I was thinking back to some of the card games I used to play when I was younger usually with relatives.

That was a more a test of recall with a set of playing rules

Misfits was about sorting out the right parts to complete each character and then their were games like snap!
There have been themed versions, one of my favourites of which is this one:

 The Beano was the go to comic at the time, for some it still is, and so playing a game of misfits that featured the likes of the Bash Street Kids, Minnie The Minx, Dennis The Menace and his dog Gnasher - a hero of mine - was bound to go down well.

One could also play Happy Families as in this Victorian version
They all helped pass the time while having fun.