Sometimes I feel like I spend my life clearing up tat. Plastic tat, at that.

From living room to kitchen to dining room to bedroom, my toddler leaves a trail of sparkly rubbish in her wake. As fast as I clear it out of the house, it makes its way back in again, like a persistent weed taking over a beautiful flower bed. Not that my house is like a beautiful flower bed, but you get the analogy.

In my attempts to banish the tatty paraphenalia, I have taken on a new game plan. This one involves finding new, better stuff to rival the plastic.

I’m drawn towards wooden toys, bright and bold colours rather than insipid sparkly ones, preferably with some kind of retro slant. The kind of things I don’t mind clogging up my living room. I know, I am a toy snob. Perhaps I wouldn’t be this way if we lived in a huge house with a playroom and deep cupboards, so I wouldn’t have to spend my evenings knee-deep in holographic stickers and dry felt-tip pens. That’s my excuse anyway. Continue reading »