Our Generation dolls at Toy Kingdom .......and my new sewing machine

A year ago I discovered the world of Our Generation and American Girl dolls. It was love at first sight. There are few places in South Africa that stock Our Generation dolls , so when I find a new store I get rather excited.

 We were at the Waterfront in Cape Town yesterday and decided to visit Toy Kingdom and Hamley's. Toy Kingdom is now stocking Our Generation dolls. YIPPEE! There are so few toy shops that do stock Our Generation dolls and accessories so I was very excited to find a new one. They also had a number of new dolls that I have not seen in store. My daughter fell in love with Sia.

I think it is her red hair, as my daughter is a red head and there are not many doll brands that carry red headed dolls. She also loved the great accessories that come with Sia. Another doll she really liked was Meagann. She told me that she thought she was very pretty and she loved all the accessories.











I thought Nia was lovely. She has a beautiful ballet outfit, soft hair and the sweetest expression. I just wish I could find more clothing and accessory sets in store. Neither toy shop had much to offer except the very large accessories like the camper van and retro cruiser. There are one or two online shops in South Africa that one can order from but I prefer to see something in store before buying. I think I am very much a touchy buyer and prefer handling an item before I spend money on it.

SA Girl doll has some lovely clothes which are not too expensive. They also have a very limited number of American Girl dolls that I am so tempted to buy….or would be if I had extra money on hand.

My other exciting news is that my new sewing machine has finally arrived. I cannot wait to try it out and start making dolls clothes for my daughter’s Barbie’s and April, her Our Generation doll. I even splurged on some pretty material, including two pieces of netting for tutu’s as well as some very soft pretty pink tulle. I am not sure what I want to do with that yet but I cannot wait to start playing with patterns and material.

  Happy crafting.

Cape Town

 So here I am, posting from the fairest Cape, the “Mother City”, the city on the southernmost tip of Africa. I never thought I would be writing those words and some days I still feel as if I am dreaming. It have wanted to live here since I first visited when I was twelve years old. I fell in love with Cape Town as a child and have wanted to move here ever since then, although I was born near the Highveld gold fields and have lived my entire life on the dry, hot, grassy plains above the escarpment with thorn trees and red dust and the blinding sun all I have ever known.

What a culture shock this move has been. We have lived here for the past six months and I am still seriously homesick for the Highveld. Cape Town is a beautiful city but it is so foreign to all I have known growing up. I now live a two day drive from where I was born but I could just as well be living on another continent. Life is slower and more relaxed. People spend serious time on leisure activities. The scruffy man in the bank queue who looks like a beach bum turns out to be a business owner talking in millions about profit. Long hair and casual clothes have replaced the army style haircuts and business suits of Gauteng. The languages are different, with Xhosa clicks heard everywhere, Afrikaans is spoken with a Cape accent which nothing like I am used to and the slow drawl that identifies a Capetonian is soft and foreign to my ears. Donkey carts, squirrels in the trees, seabirds flying overhead. The taste of the sea on my lips if the wind is blowing in the right direction. The gnarled and slanted trees growing in defiance of the Cape winds. And always the magnificence of Table Mountain dominating the skyline.

This is now the city that I call home. Yet my heart still longs for bone chilling winter frost, the still, deep hush before a Highveld thunderstorm breaks, the red earth and purple Jacarandas. The granite copies and harsh cry of the Hadeda Ibis.

We have made the decision to move and there is no going back but I am still a Valie at heart and it will take a long time before I will think of myself as Capetonian. I feel very much like these tourists in Fish Hoek beach, far from home and everything is foreign.

Please keep reading and join me on this new adventure. When I decided to start this blog I decided to call it seasonal sanity because at the time there was a great deal of craziness in my life. I was battling to with being a mom to two very young children and having to go back to work. My life has changed so much and I am now in a different season of life. My children are both at school and I am, for the time being, a housewife. We live in a beautiful city and I look forward to sharing our adventures with you.

Happy blogging

Lauren