Halfway Down the stairs..

I love the way A A Milne's poems make me round my vowels
and read them in a very English sort of way!

Halfway down the stairs
is a stair where I sit.
There isn't any other stair
 Quite like it.
 I'm not at the bottom.
I'm not at the top.
So this is the stair
Where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs
isn't up and isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery.
It isn't in the town.
And all sorts
of funny thoughts
Run around my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere.
It's somewhere else instead.


.. I have a toy cupboard in my living room.
Small visitors remember where it is
and often surprise their grown-ups by going straight there on arrival.
It holds toys that belonged to my two once upon a time small sons..
lots of lego and lego roads
matchbox vehicles in a rather battered matchbox toy carrier
some plastic dinosaurs, farm animals,
various puzzles, playing cards, drawing things
and a couple of bottles of bubble making stuff....

Over the years many children have enjoyed my cupboard.
Small neighbours know they can come and play
and pass the one rule on
"you gotta put away what you take out!"

One day a Mum commented
"oh .. it's a boy's toy cupboard."

I'd never thought about that.

I began to think about what it is little girls play with
and one day, out shopping with my sister
I bought the little doll that now sits halfway up my stairs.
We thought she was very cute.
The funny thing is, the little girls that come give the doll a cursory look over
and go back to the cupboard.

So there she sits .. halfway up the stairs
while the little girls play making lego roads with matchbox cars.

I'll be missing from Blogland for a few days.
My Little Sister and I are going to explore the Tauranga Garden Festival.
We have lots of memories of playing house with our dolls.
Now my sister has grandchildren and we'll catch up with the latest
while in Tauranga.

I'll be taking my wee camera around the gardens of course.
Catch you later!