Fabbo Friday - FIVE OLDIES BUT GOODIES

I'm having a lovely sunny Friday at home with Daisy. I actually feel a bit sad that our break together has come to an end. Last night I saw the Coco Chanel movie with Artschool Annie. It was much better than I had expected! It made me feel like bobbing my hair, starving myself, wearing men's clothes and smoking pensively in a corner when it was over. I may do a Blog about it next week and our silly faux pas there.

Today I thought it was time I finally passed along my Lovely Blog Awards that Sharon from Bookish Blonde presented me with a few weeks ago. Because there is hundreds of Blogs I love and I've made so many recent wonderful Blogging friends it is really impossible to choose - and so I've decided to go back in time to the oldest Blogs that I've followed. The five below are my favourite Blogs that I've followed for years. They are a variety of styles and content - but one thing they have in common is that they are all lovely and have enriched my creative spirit. My Five 'Oldies but Goodies' are:

1/ Vicki from FRENCH ESSENCE - A legend in the Blogging world, Vicki's book My French Life is one of my favourites. Her blog never fails to delight and inspire with snippets from her wonderful life in France. Vicki is not only stylish but incredibly beautifully mannered and always makes time for more humble Blogs with a kind comment. Whether she is talking about shoes, old cinemas, olives, French movies, life with her family her posts never fail to enlighten and enrich your world. I await her second book with great anticipation.

2/ Carla from CARLA LOVES PHOTOGRAPHY - An Australian girl who pursued her dreams in Italy and wrote the beautiful Italian Joy. Carla Coulson's books are all divine. I also love Paris Tango and it was Carla who photographed My French Life for Vicki Archer. Now living in Paris, Carla updates her Blog with snippets of her incredible life and adventures and you will never fail to be inspired when you visit this lovely Australian.

3/ Allison from MY COZY HOME - I have followed Allison as she recounts her domestic adventures in her cozy American home that she shares with her picture perfect family for years. I love her little Evy! Allison and I share a love of Cath Kidston, England and mysteries and I always feel as if I've visited a friend when I pop over to her cozy, adorable house! Thanks Allison for always being as charming, cozy and gorgeous as you are!

4/ Willow from LIFE AT WILLOW MANOR - Another American who records fascinating snippets on a variety of topics from her incredibly popular Blog, Life at Willow Manor. How I envy Willow her beautiful manor! Yes, even her ghost! This is an informative, uplifting Blog that runs the gauntlet from Willow's recipes, latest ghost sighting, beautiful poetry and musings on an incredible variety of topics. Willow never fails to entertain and instruct and has a most disturbing resemblance to Johnny Depp! (Actually I think more Juliette Binoche but Willow claims Johnny!)

And last but no means least

Justine Picardie from JUSTINE PICARDIE. I share a great love of Daphne du Maurier with Justine and I always find when I visit Justine's Blog that she never fails to move, entertain and inform me. Justine is a beautifully eloquent, elegant writer and this is one Blog that I've been awoken to new passions and discovered other writers thanks to Justine. I eagerly await her forthcoming biography of Coco Chanel as the ever stylish Justine will do full justice I'm sure to Coco. Thank you Justine for sharing so much of yourself and your talent through your Blog.

And there you have my Five Oldies But Goodies. Five Blogs that I've been following the longest. Through their separate efforts they have awakened me to the power of Blogging. I hope you may have found a new friend amongst my Five.

Enjoy your weekend. We have two five-year birthday parties this weekend and chores around the house that badly need doing. Wishing you a weekend of family, fun and creative pursuits aplenty. xx

Magnificent, Marvellous, Mighty Monday and ENID BLYTON

It never fails to warm the cockles of my heart when I read those 'ten books that influenced me' columns and see so many writers from a wide spectrum of genres cite Enid Blyton as their early inspiration.


I can still recall being a small child in Papua New Guinea, holding an Enid Blyton book in my hand, trembling with excitement as I stared at the incomprehensible scribbles and markings. I knew if I mastered reading I would be privy to the magic this book promised.


After my blue-and-red readers I progressed to Enid and what a universe of joy and magic she led me to. I still enjoy her books and have the great satisfaction of introducing my daughter to her works. Indeed, Enid is the first author I have seen my daughter weep when we reach the end of the chapter, begging, and screaming for 'one more, just one more!'

No higher accolade for a storyteller!

Through Daisy I’ve gained an appreciation of Noddy, The Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair that I didn't have when younger. But I’ve never liked the Mr Twiddle books!


My personal favourites were the mystery books. Famous Five would make my heart race faster when I held their hardcovers, ready to begin a new adventure. Nearly every female I know wanted to be George, but I loved Anne - so sensible and her dresses were great! I also enjoyed Secret Seven and adored the boarding school stories, St Clare's and Malory Towers. I desperately wished I had been christened Angela (a boarding school type of name in my opinion) and could go to boarding school and eat such delicious sounding food as anchovy paste toast and cream buns in midnight suppers. It was a world far removed from my own Tasmanian midlands upbringing.


Re-reading the books again, I'm struck by how similar they are to the Rowling books with their spells, exploding toffee shocks and schools of enchantment. But Enid was there first, chanelling all her glorious tales long before Harry Potter madness.


Librarians may have banned her, but when Daisy visits libraries she's often disappointed at the choices where animals take major roles in books - or when the books have 'worthy' subjects such as dealing with the loss of a parent or having gays as parents. Daisy wants simply stories about children - preferably children eating loads of junk food and having wild adventures without their parents. Parents in the books are simply there to pack the hampers with chocolate cake, egg sandwiches and lashings of ginger-beer.


Enid understood this longing in a child's heart for stories of their own tribe because she too craved stories about children when she was a child. I hunt down vintage copies for our collection as I don't like the rewritten versions. No doubt my mother threw out a lot of my old books which I'm now recollecting.


I'm also a member of The Enid Blyton Society and receive their journal three times a year. My appreciation of Enid has only grown over the years rather than dimmed. When I'm feeling low, a read of St Clare's or Malory Towers and I often pick up again.



Thanks to Enid, I believe that rabbits do live in cozy homes under tree roots. She gave me magic in my childhood as I hungered for smugglers, secret passages, tea-parties with fairies, jolly japes on deserted islands, purses with coins that kept coming and all washed down with lashings of ginger beer. She also gave me a great love of England. I still thrill when I see her books that I loved so much as a child.



And so for Magnificent, Marvellous, Mighty Monday let us take inspiration from the storyteller who knew how to capture generations of children and adults with her spell-binding, non-pretentious joyous tales. Let us celebrate Enid Blyton! For more about this very complex, talented, child-like woman, you can do no better than Barbara Stoney's biography, a fascinating read about the artist behind the tales.

"Dear heart
And soul of a child,
Sing on!"

Enid Blyton