Merry Christmas and thank you for following us throughout 2015 and may 2016 be a good year for all of us.

 

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MERRY CHRISTHAS TO EVERYONE FROM THE SASHA EMPORIUM

As you can see Twizel is very proud of her Christmas window display this year.

 

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The Angel on the tree is getting a lot of attention from our resident reindeer.

 

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Merry Christmas From Hope

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Merry Christmas from the Babies

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Merry Christmas from Frechdachs and Freya

 

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Merry Christmas From Charity

 

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Merry Christmas from Trendon O’Neill

 

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Merry Christmas from Charlotte

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Merry Christmas from Mr G and…….

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Caleb (who are loving their new outfits by Sarah Williams)

 

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Merry Christmas from Morna

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Merry Christmas from Pippin and Michael

 

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Merry Christmas from Tess

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Merry Christmas from Nuru and Gracie

 

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Merry Christmas from Little Flower

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Merry Christmas from Pierrot  and…….

 

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Twizel xx

 

First of all i heard the door bell ring and then i heard the girls shout “Special Delivery Mum i think she’s here”. I went to investigate all the commotion and there was Marina,Morna and Tess carrying a rather large parcel. Excitement filled the air as we had been waiting patiently for a special delivery. Gitta 1Gitta 2
The girls put the parcel on the ground and that’s when they heard a tapping from the inside. “Oh” said Morna “We had better get this parcel open i think someone wants to come out” Gitta 3
Out of the parcel came what looked like a mummy from Egypt which quite frightened Marina especially when the mummy started to make a noise. Tess always the sensible one said “listen it is saying something”, then they all heard a muffled “please get me out of this parcel i want to see you”
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The girls set to work to carefully unwrap the mummy Gitta 5
It was becoming quite clear that this was not a mummy and when a dainty little hand appeared the girls all shouted “its her she is here Mum”
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As the girls help their new friend out of her wrappings she said to them “hi my name is Gitta and i have travelled from Switzerland to join your family”
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Morna told Gitta she was very welcome and that they had all been waiting for her to arrive.
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Morna ,Tess and Marina gathered around Gitta, Marina always the inquisitive one said “Gitta you have a lovely name”. Gitta thanked Marina and said “your Mum who is now my new Mum has given me the name Gitta in honour of my old mum”. The girls led Gitta off to play and meet the rest of her new family.
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Pippin Has Fun Training Woof

Pippin is almost the newest member of my Sasha family and she is a beautiful wide faced Sasha doll with the most amazing hair. I was lucky enough to purchase Pippin at the Chat ‘n’Snap recently held by Dee.Woof the dog is also new and he also was purchased at the chat’n’snap, after all the Sasha’s have wanted a pet for a long time. Today, Pippin is training woof. First of all Pippin calls woof to come to her.pippin and woof training 1
Well done, Woof now be a good boy and sit!
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OH Woof you are a clever dog, now stay!
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Good Boy Woof now i am going to put your lead on and i want you to stand by me.
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Woof you are such a clever dog, i think you are ready for your first walk on the lead and when we get back i will make sure you have a special treat. Come on Woof let’s go!!
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Some of you may remember that quite some time ago i purchased a blonde waif in need of some TLC.However, when she arrived it soon became clear that she would need an abundance of TLC as she had a lot more problems than the seller had let on. I took one look at her little face and started making plans to fix her up so to speak.
It has taken quite a while as home and family life has put a few obstacles in my way. Now, i can start to share Hope’s story with you. I decided to call her Hope so that she can be a beacon of hope to all those little waifs out there just waiting to be found.
The first photo’s of Hope are the ones i took when she arrived. Hope had quite a few problems then and there are some i will never be able to fix. When Hope arrived her stringing was shot so she could not hold a pose.
She was very dirty and had ink on both sides of her face. She has a dink out of her nose and a scratch right across one of her eyes which i can do nothing about. Her hair was like straw, but maybe the worst thing of all was that she had no knuckles, it was as if someone had filed them away.
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Where to start i asked myself, i decided to try to remove the ink from her face first and there are a couple of ways of doing this. I decided to use acne cream on her face to remove the ink. I had quite a job explaining to the chemist what i wanted it for and i had to promise him that it was not for use on an animal!
First of all i gave Hope a nice body wash making sure that i did not ge t any soapy water inside her. I removed Hope’s arms and put pencils along side the sockets to keep the stringing there. Once Hope was dry i wrapped her in tissue paper and only left the parts of her face with the ink on exposed.
Next i applied acne cream to the ink and then i place Hope in front of a lamp and checked her every now and then, once the acne cream had hardened i removed it and re-applied a fresh batch. The lamp was not proving as successful as i had hoped, so i decided to leave Hope on the window sill and let the natural sun work on the acne cream.
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After a couple of weeks on the window sill the ink on Hope’s face had gone.

So the first part of repairing Hope was to remove the ink from her face which has been done.
The next part was not so easy. I decided to try and repair Hopes badly damaged hands. her poor hands had no knuckle area at all as some one had filed them away.
The first step was to remove hopes arms.
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Once i had removed hopes arms i could get a better look at the damage which extended to the under part of her hands also. Poor Girl!
I tried the hot water technique first, so i filled a small bowl with nearly boiling water and plunged her hands into the water for a couple of minutes.
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Now if there had been a dent or ding to her hands, i would have been able to fix it using the hot water method, unfortunately this was not the case and the damage was to great so i had to re-think what i was going to do.
I consulted various Sasha people for any help they could give me and after much deliberation i decided that milliput was the way to go.
Now milliput is not available in many colours and the terracotta colour is more suitable to the colouring of the early Gotz dolls, so that would be something else to deal with later.
For now i had my terracotta milliput, i mixed up the milliput as per the instructions on the packet and applied it to Hopes hands, after making sure they were clean and dry first.
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As you can see from the photo’s i applied enough milliput to the hands so that it sat proud, allowing me to sand the milliput down with very fine sand paper. I sanded down the milliput by hand very gently a bit at a time comparing her hands to the unaffected hands of another Sasha doll as i went and this is what the sanded down version looked like.
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As i said before the colour of the milliput di d not match the skin tone so once again after consulting some fellow Sasha lovers, i decided to use acrylic paint. I went to quite a few craft shops and although i found a colour that was quite similar to the dolls completion it was not an exact match. then i remembered that someone once told me that Sasha M always used a touch of black in her paints, which gave me an idea. i added black paint drop by drop to the complexion paint until i reach a colour that i was happy with.
I then painted the milliput with the paint and carried the paint over the milliput and a little way up Hopes hands.This was the result.
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As you can see once the paint had dried the colour was not a complete match and at some point i will redo them until i get it right. Then i will seal the paint with matt acrylic varnish so that it does not shine to much but for now Hope has new hands!!

Hi everyone well here i am again with the next instalment of repairing my darling little Hope.
Now Hope had new hands it was time to try and re-string her, before i could do that i had to gather the equipment together that i would need.
Once again i took guidance from a number of Sasha friends and with the knowledge i had gained i decided to give it a go so to speak. now i am no professional at any of the repairs that i have carried out on Hope and everything i have done has been trial and error and done with love, so if you have a doll that needs repairing and you don’t want to take any chances on further damage then consult the professionals.
Brenda Walton is a professional person to go to if you need your doll re-strung in the UK.
i am adding a link to the Sasha Doll Musings blog as this gives you great detail on how to re-string a doll
http://sashadollblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/on-re-stringing-sasha-dolls.html
The first thing i had to do with Hope was to re-set her bar in her neck as it had come loose and was rattling around in her head, so i stood her head in a shallow dish of hot water for a couple of minutes and then with a pair of medical forceps i re-positioned her neck bar and once cool it remained in place.
The restringing process on the Sasha Doll Musings blog shows slightly different equipment than i have used, for instance i could not find the the metal clamps they have used to i used cable ties. I don’t have any photo’s of the actual re-stringing that i carried out on Hope as i was too busy trying to do it.
A couple of tips i do have are with the head to leg re-string is to tie this off at the leg using a pencil as an anchor and then remove the pencil once the leg has been attached. I used plastic ties on the arm re-stringing as it is easier when using a smaller piece of stringing and also remember to put your arm stringing behind the leg to head stringing.
The equipment i used can be easily sourced, the medical forceps i got from ebay for about £8 in a job lot and these are excellent as they are self gripping. The boot hook was also on ebay for about £10 and is great for puling the stringing through, which was a tip from Ted. Ted also gave me a tip about how to use pipe cleaners to stop hook and bar attachments from falling into the doll.The plastic ties are easy to get hold of too.

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The string that i used i purchased from ebay and i used the same thickness as the original.
I did it Hope has been restrung, so on to her hair, which resembles dry candy floss. The first thing i tried with Hopes hair was to first clean it gently with baby shampoo and then soak it in fabric conditioner. It felt ok so i styled it in rollers and left it to dry.

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Unfortunatley once Hope’s hair was dry it still looked very dry and dull.I wet her hair again and this time i soaked it in woolite, which improved the texture, but her hair was still very dry on the ends. I decided to try a rich human conditioner that comes with hair-dye to the ends of Hopes hair and although her hair is by no means perfect, it does look better and smells beautiful.
Would you like to see her, She’s a bit shy!!

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Turn round Hope we want to see you.

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Here are some more photo’s of Hope i think she turned out ok!!

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And now there is an up date to this story, as hope’s hair was still straw like I decided to re-rot it and here she is now.re root 4

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by twizeltheresa Pro @ 2014-04-29 – 15:49:07

It was rather a nice sunny day today so Gitta a lovely blonde no-navel decided to take the family dog Woof for a walk into town, just as she was about to walk into the town centre she spotted a sign in a shop window saying New Shop opening soon!gitta and woof  outside shop 4
Well, Gitta (said to Woof as there was no one else there at the time to talk to)” i bet this is Mums new shop, she has been waiting to open this for ages, but because of all the building work that has been going on at home she hasn’t been able to.I will have to tell the others. I hope Mum is going to sell some clothes like this lovely embroidered coat she made me.
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Gitta went on her way
Next to find the shop was Ruth a 1969 blonde centre part and Pebbles an early brunette baby girl. Ruth is wearing a dress and matching pants that i made for her, in her hair she has Frog hair slides that i have also made and on her feet she is wearing a pair of Berkis made by Marti Murphy.Pebbles is wearing a little dress that i made for her and is modelling Ladybird hair slides that i also make.
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Next to find the shop was my 1969 brunette side part who does not have a name and this is simply because i can’t find one to suit her, she is wearing a lovely dress and pants by A Passion for Sasha which was a gift to me.The shoes are a leather pair i made myself and she is modelling 1 of the barrette clips that i also made.
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Pippin my 1973 wide faced brunette popped along to find out what all the fuss was about?
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Pippin is wearing a lovely dress by Joanie B and a lovely cardi by Joan Woodbridge, her sock are by Gillian Nash and her frog Barrette clip in her hair was made by me.
Next to pop along to the shop was my 1970 blonde girl Gracie and she is modelling an outfit made entirely by me from cotton fabric, i also made the leather sandals she is wearing and the hair slide she is modelling.
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By now a little group had gathered outside the shop and they all had the same thing on their mind. ” i hope the shop opens soon!!
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Twizels Needs a Little Help!!

For those of you that don’t know Twizel is a little rag doll who is the manager of Twizels Sasha Emporium Shop and she may be small but she knows how to keep those Sasha dolls in order!
Here’s Twizel sitting outside the shop, i wonder why she is looking so fed up?
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Look says Twizel, mum is counting on me as the manager of this shop to make sure the sign gets finished, but i am too small and i don’t have a ladder.
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Well, Twizel here’s an idea, why don’t you get Michael to help you as he is very good at organising things. I am sure i saw him and that good looking Gregor that Mum hasn’t named yet, heading this way. Twizel thinks this is a good idea.
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The two boys re-assure Twizel that they will put the finishing touches to the shop, so that she can stop worrying. Twizel makes sure the boys have all the tools they need and goes inside the shop. The boys set to work.
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However, whilst Michael sets to work, Mr Good looking thinks his talents are wasted and decides to take an unofficial break.
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Michael is not impressed and tells Mr Good looking to get up and help, otherwise Twizel will be very upset with him, but Mr Good lookung refuses to budge.
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Mr good looking says’ “I’m not moving and you can’t make me” Maybe i can’t say’s Michael but i think i know someone who can.Oh Yes says Mr Good looking who is that then.
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Twizel at this moment decides to check how the boys are getting along and spots Mr Good looking sitting down.
Michael says to Mr Good looking look behind you!
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Mr Good looking takes one look at Twizels face and he knows he is in trouble. Quick smart he jumps up and starts helping Michael again.
Now the boys are a bit taller than Twizel but they still need a ladder which they do not have. Mr Good looking tells Michael to stand on his shoulders.
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With some supervision from Twizel the boys get the job done and afterwards they both sit down so that Twizel can give them a hug. Twizel is so happy that the shop sign is finished.
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Hi Michael and Mr G (Good looking) and what are you two up to today? Michael says,”Oh, we are just helping mum feed the dinosaurs”. Mr G says “Michael they are not dinosaurs they are tortoises” Michael is a bit miffed by this as he thought they were dinosaurs, but he doesn’t let it get him down and the pair continue to help feed the tortoises.
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Mr G sits down to get a closer look at Tanya as she is his favourite tortoise and he proceeds to tell Michael all about her. Tanya he tells Michael is a spur thigh tortoise and one of only 3 species that can live outside in England. Spur thigh’s are named after the spurs on their front legs and the females are bigger than the males.
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Michae starts to yawn as Mr G babbles on like he is some kind of Doctor Doolittle. Michael says “i know lets go bug and butterfly hunting”. Mr G thinks this is a good idea and the two go off to find their bug hunting equipment.

In the garden the two lads soon find some prey to try out the equipment on.
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Mr G starts to boss poor Michael around again. He says “Michael hold that branch still and don’t breath or the butterfly will get away”. I am trying my best says Michael.
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The two little guys are trying very hard to catch a butterfly.
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After a while Michael suggest that they might have better luck by the pond so the two of them go to investigate.
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Wow, do you see that butterfly says Michael, its a pity its sitting on the net because we will never catch it now!
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After another disastrous attempt Mr G concedes and lets Michael hold the net as they move off in search of more bugs and butterflies.
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Look at that beautiful butterfly. Mr G says ” you catch it in the net Michael and i will get the basket ready!
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Just as Michael was about to catch the butterfly. Mr G suddenly exclaims “can you hear that”
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Oh Yes i can says Michael and its coming from by the statue in the garden.
From down the garden the boys can here someone making a strange sound. Michael being the bravest goes to investigate.
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The noise Michael can here is definitely a voice and it is singing vier fünf or as Michael understands it sounds like Fear Thump. Michael calls out to Mr G to come and help him as this person does not sound friendly at all so Mr G also goes to investigate.
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The pair decide to be very brave and confront the stranger together.

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Michael and Mr G have decided to tackle the stranger and after a deep breath they jump out on to see the stranger.

Well, Michael and Mr G are definitely not prepared for the sight that meets their eyes. In front of them is a blonde boy strumming a banjo sitting next to a suitcase. Now the boys think that the blonde boy could be another Gregor doll who has met with a terrible accident because he has no nose and they think that this is why he sounds so strange when he speaks.
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Michael being the bravest say’s “who are you” and the blonde boy replies Guten Tag Frechdachs. Michael thinks he has said go and tag some fresh ducks, so being the simpathetic soul he is, he tells the blonde boy that there are fresh chickens next door, but no ducks and that mum does all the cooking and that he hasn’t tried fresh ducks before.
The blonde boy keeps pointing at himself and saying Frechdachs which Michael believes is fresh ducks, Michael truly believes that his little blonde boy must be starving for something to eat.
Mr G being the smarter of the two suddenly has an idea. he tells Michael that maybe the blonde lad is from another country and that may be the reason he is talking strangely. Mr G says the only person to ask as Mum isn’t here is Gitta as she is from another country too.
Gitta is at the bottom of the garden when the two boys call to her to join them and the stranger.

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Gita joins the boys beside the blonde boy and Gitta says Hello to the blonde boy.

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The blonde boy replies Guten Tag and Gitta breaks out in a great big smile and says Guten Tag, Sie zu, both the boys look at each other in astonishment. Gitta starts to giggle and explains to the boys that the blonde boy is from Germany and he is speaking German and she understands what he is saying because she also came from Germany.
What about his nose say’s Michael and Gitta tells him not to be so rude as his shape nose is called a no-nose because in the year that he was made all the German line of dolls had a no-nose.
Ok say’s Michael what about the fresh ducks. Don’t worry says Gitta he doesn’t want fresh ducks, Frechdachs is the name Mum has given him and it is German for Cheeky Boy. Gitta tells Frechdachs to gather his things as Mum will be looking everywhere for him.

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The boys gathe around Frechdachs with Gitta and start to stroll back to the house, when Mr G says well why was Frechdachs singing Fear and Thump. Gitta says he was singing vier fünf which is four and five in German as he was trying to remember what notes he was supposed to use on his banjo.Michael giggles and Mr G points out that at least he didn’t think that Tortoises were dinosaurs.

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Just then who should come along but another of the tortoises and this time it was Bod who is a 37 year old male Herman tortoise whom Mum adopted. Herman tortoise are smaller than spur thigh tortoises but they get along very well.
Frechdachs decides that he likes tortoises.

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Just before Frechdachs makes it to the back door he comes across another tortoise and this time it is another male tortoise, but a spur thigh who is Tanya’s mate. Frechdachs wonders why he is so near the house and Gitta says he is probably wondering how his babies are doing.
Yes, says Gitta come and have a look!

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The gang all gather around the incubator and Gitta explains that this is why Michael is confused about the tortoise eggs as he know that Dinosaurs laid eggs too and to be fair Tortoises do look a bit prehistoric.

Gitta explained that a couple of weeks ago Tanya had laid her first clutch of 6 eggs and that Mum had put them in the incubator and if they are fertile then in about 10 weeks we should have 6 new baby tortoises. Gitta also said that Michael was probably confused as to the tortoises being dinosaurs because they lay eggs and to be fair they do look prehistoric. They all gathered around the incubator to look at the eggs and Frechdachs felt very happy that not only did he have a new family but it looked like his new home would provide lots of entertainment.
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Picking up from where i left off yesterday, i was very surprised to find this wonderful place full of toys from days gone past at Bletchley park. Helen was overjoyed to find some play mates.
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There were al sorts of trinkets as well as toys from the 1930’s to the 1950’s

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There was one bear in particular that both i and Helen fell in love with, he has the most charismatic face and if i could have taken him home i would have.

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The dolls house below was used to help plan army manoeuvres.

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More toys.

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The flying ducks on the wall always remind me of Hilda Ogdens living room in Coronation Street.

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Before we left this wonderful building Helen and i signed the visitors register.

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Just outside were the cottages which housed Alan Turing and other members of staff.but as they ar still not open to the public, Helen had a rest in the garden, before we moved on to the chauffeurs hut to look at the vehicles.

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Now you may or may not know that pigeons played a big part in the war effort too, so much so that some of them were awarded a medal called the
Dickin medal.

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Before we left Blechley Park we popped into the souvenir shop to pick up some souvenirs to send back to Wendy for Helen’s Auction next year.The shop had some lovely old games like Ludo and even a monopoly game by Alan Turing.

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So after a great time at Bletchley Park, Helen and i headed home.
“Helen what are you doing?”

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“I am pretending to be an evacuee”

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Helen is actually modelling the souvenirs from Bletchley Park that will be going into her auction next year.
They are a copy of an evacuee tag, a ration book, a war time cookery book, a Sasha sized war time puzzle, a wartime paper doll with outfits,a leaflet on Bletchley Park and a key ring with a sixpence piece dated 1947.

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There is also a special Bletchley Park penny (the shiny piece of flat metal next to the keyring). There is a machine that you put a £1 coin and 1p into with four different coin fonts to choose from. This one has the Mansion House on it. You then turn the handle of the machine and it prints you out a Bletchley con made from your 1p.
Well, that is the end of Helen’s trip to Bletchley Park and i hope you have all enjoyed it. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Helen and i entered the hallway of the Mansion House and saw this plaque commemorating a visit by Prince Charles in 2008.
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Helen wanted to explore the upstairs rooms but, unfortunately they were off limits.
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The next room we visited was the morning room/library which was very light and airy with classic furniture from WW2.
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We left the Mansion House and i turned around to find Helen standing on a large stone. I asked her what she was doing and she said that Winston Churchill had told her to stand on his stone, so she did.
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Aound the corner from the Mansion house is the Bletchley Park post office, which is run by a very nice man called Peter, who welcomed Helen into his post office.
The Post office is set up exactly as it would have been in the 1940’s.
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Around the corner from the post office there was a treat i had not expected to find at Bletchley Park. Helen was very excitedly pointing to a poster.
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The sign said Toys, Domestic Artefacts and Costumes from 1930s-1950’s.The final part of Bletchley Park will be posted tomorrow so if you would like to see what else we discovered tune in tomorrow!!

Once Helen had had a little rest we continued our tour of Bletchley Park. There is a lovely lake at Bletchley park and Helen insisted on having a photo taken by the lake as it looked so relaxing.
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For the staff at Bletchley Park the Lake gave some rest bite from the conundrums of code breaking. In the Summer the lake provided opportunities for boating and in the winter when it froze over people would go skating on it.
In the background of the 2n photo you can just make out the mansion house.
The grounds of Bletchley Park also provide some much needed rest bite from the noise of the code breaking machines and also romantic liaisons.Helen found the grounds enchanting.

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I visited Bletchley park a few years ago to take part in the Antique Road show and i queued for ages, but whilst i was in the queu i noticed that there was a herb garden dedicated to America. On this visit i tried t find it again.
I was told that what ever flower’s that were planted overtook the herb garden, but i was assured that all of the plants in this area were American. Unfortunately the only two litle markers left in what would have been the herb garden were very faded and don’t show up in the photo, but i can tell you that one says Alabama and the other New Jersey.

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As we made our way up to the Mansion House, it was quite exciting when you think that the likes of Winston Churchill, The Royal Family and the Actors from the Bletchley Circle had all been into the Mansion House. Here is the Mansion House.

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At the entrance to the Mansion House there are two gargoyals guarding the entrance. Helen found them quite amusing but by the look on their faces i don’t think they found her quite so amusing.

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“oi, get off my head”

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“be quiet and make like Harry Potter, lets fly”

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“Will you let go of my ears young lady”
At this point i thought i has best separate Helen from the grumpy gargoyle and continue looking around the Mansion House.

The Mansion house if a very impressive building with lots of beautiful architecture. The first room we visited was the drawing/music room.
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There was an impressive fireplace and mantel with a bust of Winston Churchill that Helen got quite friendly with and from the look on Winston’s face he was thoroughly enjoying their conversation.The drawing room was used in 1940 for security lectures and later it became the music room where gramophone concerts were held.

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The Dining room was used as the Mess room throughout the war, another lovely room with an oak fireplace and mantel and a wonderful ceiling.

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Below is a photo of a watercolour painting of the Mansion house and some photo’s of the interior of the entertainment/dance room.

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