Wednesday

I love Milly-Molly-Mandy.

Do you know the books?  Very old fashioned they are.  I first read them when I was a little girl and they were olde-worlde even then with Grandpa driving to market in his pony and trap and candles in the bedrooms. 
When I read the story where Little-Friend-Susan came to stay and Mother made lid potatoes, nothing else would satisfy me but for my Mum to make lid potatoes in EXACTLY the same way, with 'a little salt and a little pepper and a lot of butter'!

So what better while we were doing our Long, Long Ago topic than to start reading MMM stories to the children.  It's always a bit of a question mark - all words - 'proper' stories with few pictures, but every year the children rise to the occasion and beg for more.  So we are still reading them at the end of the day; there's a lot of stories to get through.

Today it was the one about when teacher came to stay ('MMM gets to know teacher').  When I got to the bit where teacher shows MMM how to make a row of paper sailor dolls they all looked puzzled so I showed them with a strip of paper and a picture of a teddy (my drawing 'skills' - for want of a more accurate term - are nothing like Joyce Lankester Brisley's!!!) and I wish I could show you their faces as I unfolded the strip after cutting the bear shape out and showed them the little row of bears.  Sheer, unadulterated happiness.

Who says children are too sophisticated nowadays for the simple things?  Not me!

Billy Blunt, Miss Muggin's Jilly, Little-Friend-Susan and Milly-Molly-Mandy herself.