Once Upon a Time..

Today is 'National Tell A Fairy Tale Day'.
 I'm not sure who made this day up but if it gets children reading and adults enjoying and sharing fairy tales of their own childhood with their offspring then it cant be bad. It was also nice to hear fairy tales being discussed on the radio (which is how I found out about this little day).

When I was little I was given a copy of 'Dean's Gift Book of Fairy Tales'

Published in 1967 it was full of crazy, colourful and slightly sinister illustrations of all the best loved fairy tales.  I remember being quite scared by a particular illustration of the genie in Aladdin

No fluffy bunny images for 1960s children.

How about Hansel and Gretel

 Oh yes those poor sad eyed children who starting tucking into the ginger bread house of an old witch.  Hansel of course gets put in a cage and his sister is forced to cook food for her brother to fatten him up so the witch can have a hearty meal of young boy. All wholesome fun.

And we all love a witch in a fairy tale, how about this horned, bat winged minx from Sleeping Beauty:

There is also the two dandy robbers from Babes in the Wood who were paid to take the children away and kill them (not a very PC start to a children's story):

But don't despair, "Jane and Thomas thought the robbers looked very gay, with their colourful clothes and feathered hats" and rightly so, the kindest of the robbers decided not to kill them but to leave them in the woods instead.   Just don't read this one to children with separation anxiety.

My original copy of this book was given away many moons ago so I was chuffed to bits to find a copy of it in a charity shop. I will be sharing a fairy tale with my son this evening at bed time, although I might not scare the bejesus out of him with Aladdin's genie though *wink*

What is your favourite childhood fairy tale?

Before I go, I would like to say a massive thank you for your comments on my last post. I was welcomed back into blogland a treat. To be honest i was touched that you still had my blog on your read lists.  I'm so happy to be back in touch with all my bloggy friends so big love to you all.

BOO! Guess who!

Hello my lovelies! Look who's back from the dead ;o)

I'm sorry for the huge blogging break, life got in the way but one main excuse for the break was ...

 Yes I'd like to introduce you to Poppy!  The new addition to the Fontaine home :o)  She was born 2nd January 2013 two weeks early.  I had to be induced due to a  rare (ish) condition i developed in pregnancy called obstetric cholestasis which they found out about at 37 weeks and promptly had me induced at 38 weeks.  Once they got the drip in and broke my waters labour went pretty damn quickly as she was out in 75 minutes, arriving at 9:45pm!  So if any of you are fans of 'One Born Every Minute' then that Wednesday when you were watching the start of the new series, I was in pushing action and hubby was getting the live show!

 

So life has been pretty busy with a manic 2 and a half year old and a newborn to contend with!  I will of course tell you more when I get some more time to give you a full up date of my missing months.  But till then will leave you with these couple of pictures of Poppy which we had done by the bounty lady who launches herself at you on the labour ward ready to cash in on the new parent daze.  As Poppy wasn't nearly as "squashed" looking as Finley was after birth, and as the pictures were pretty cute, I succumbed to buying them.  But hey after remembering how painful labour was it will be the last time the bounty lady gets hold of my cash ;o)

 

 

Well I have now a whole load of catching up to do on all your lives, I hope you are all well.  Its going to take a few weeks  days to get round you all as its a bit of a time juggling act at the moment but hopefully you will forgive me.

 

Big Love!