magazine treats - it's this or booze

The other day I took the kids to the dentist for their check-ups. The Boy is absolutely fine about this, Miss Mouse less predictable. She has a history of refusing point-blank to open her mouth and for all the poor dentist knew she might have only had two green fangs. Last time we went I bribed her (with a plastic tiara) and the dentist was able to check and count her teeth (20 and white, yay!). This time however she went shy again and was scared of the chair and the big scarey shining-in-mouth light. It took five minutes of coaxing and cajoling before we got her calmed down - in the end I sat in the big chair with her on my lap and she was fine then, though I was tense and stressed by this time and in need of a whisky!

We took a wander round to the papershop afterwards and I got the kids a 'comic' each as a sort of reward (hey, she didn't bite the dentist like my friend's daughter did..), i.e some piece of tv/film tie-in rubbish with a crappy plastic toy attached to it. Naturally the kids adore these but it's a rare treat. I felt thoroughly justified in rewarding myself with something too (in place of whisky!) and to my surprise found the Debbie Bliss magazine.


To put this in perspective I've never seen this anywhere outside of Borders or maybe in the John Lewis knitting/sewing/whatever department. To find it in a wee RS McColl's in East Kilbride was a surprise, though actually the magazine selection in there is really impressive for a smallish shop. I'd never read it before so it was a new experience for me. The patterns were interesting, some unusual stuff in the Scottish Eccentrics 'story' though honestly Argyle patterns and intarsia Scottie Dogs go a bit beyond eccentricity and should be considered a crime against aesthetics. The interview with Anna Wilkinson was fascinating. I don't know if I'd buy the magazine often but I was taken by the Fair Isle stuff as I'm in a Fair Isle mood at the moment.

Miss Mouse looked at the cover earlier and said 'She's very pretty' pointing at the cover. It made me laugh actually when I looked at the cover properly because it reminded me of a sketch in a comedy programme (possibly Smack the Pony?) years ago - 'people who look Irish..' in which a girl with tumbling auburn curls ponced around in the scenery doing the kind of things that models do in fashion shoots with an Irish theme or in adverts for the Irish tourist board. The same can clearly be done with Scotland - 'get someone ginger but not too freckly'..