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Showing posts from January, 2017

Attention! Nini studio boy doll under construction

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Dear Diary, Jesse:   Sometime last year, my friend Daddy Steve at Gregoropolis sent me the link to the website for Nini Dolls (see 'Recommended Sites' at the left).  I opened the site and when I saw the dolls my jaw dropped to the floor!  I couldn't believe the stunning studio dolls I was looking at.  Immediately, I said to myself "I must have one of them!"  I couldn't get the dolls out of my mind and I kept returning to look at them.  Not long afterward, another friend, Henry's Mum, Lorraine at Friends of Rose Cottage and Holidays with Henry, sent me photos and told me about her great pleasure with her newly acquired Nini doll.  It was then that I started to follow Nini Dolls on Facebook (I don't have my own account so I had to hack my husband's).  I followed the progress of each doll, from inception to completion.  Last week a sketch of a boy titled 'Chilly Day' was posted on the Facebook page and I assumed it would become a doll.

More about boys playing with their dolls

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Dear Diary, I love this photo! Jesse :  The arrival of Hans has triggered a deluge of childhood memories inside my head and has got me thinking overtime about the entire 'boys playing with dolls' debate.  I just celebrated (in a big way!) my 65th birthday which, if you count backwards, will tell you that I was brought up in the toxic 1950s and early 1960s.  I can find nothing nostalgic about those times; re-naming them "mid-last century" doesn't make anything about them attractive.  I don't blame my parents for how they raised me; they, like us today, were victims of their times.  This video tells my story. It has been staged to look like the 1950s; I recognise the clothes, the truck and even the doll:    For years I worked to get over the scars of being different. Now, I capitalise on my age and I no longer care what anyone thinks.  I wasn't as fortunate as some boys, like my friend Steve who, when he was a boy, was given a Sasha Grego

Armchair travels

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Dear Diary, Jesse :  It's not easy to find the proper size chair for my boys so when I saw this chair on Etsy, I knew it was for us.  It's not the usual run-of-the-mill furniture for 18" dolls.  This is handmade, old and very unique.  I was certain that it would fit the boys perfectly and so I couldn't pass it up. Its journey to New Zealand was an interesting one.  It spent 5 days moving across Florida before departing the USA on 13 December.  It then travelled 4,315 miles, reaching Santiago Chile a day later.  Rock ledge, Florida USA to Santiago, Chile: 4,315 miles Why it went to Chile is anyone's guess but a day later it left Chile and headed for New Zealand.  I was worried that the parcel had been strapped to the back of a burro and it was coming across the Andes.  However, 4 days and 9,664 miles later, it arrived in Auckland, finally reaching me on 20 December.  Santiago Chile to Auckland, New Zealand: 9,664 miles This voyage cove

A doll poem

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Dear Diary, Angelo :  I think you'll enjoy this lovely poem by a man about his doll.   The Little Doll ~Charles Kingsley I once had a sweet little doll, dears, The prettiest doll in the world; Her cheeks were so red and so white; dears, And her hair was so charmingly curled. But I lost my poor little doll, dears, As I played in the heath one day; And I cried for her more than a week, dears; But I never could find where she lay. I found my poor little doll, dears, As I played in the heath one day: Folks say she is terrible changed, dears, For her paint is all washed away, And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears, And her hair not the least bit curled: Yet for old sakes' sake she is still, dears, The prettiest doll in the world.  I t was written by Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875), a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian and novelist.  I cannot find anywhere an explanati