Summer is finally here! We are very pleased here at Sprogs because we have lots of lovely summer clothes and it’s finally warm enough to wear them!!

Following my last post, I have to report that so far there have been no problems with the demonstrating of our Baby Slings. Bob has managed to put one on and take it off without getting stuck! Admittedly, a baby would have fallen out of it, but the mum watching didn’t seem put off by this, as I think she was just humouring Bob! Anyway, they are selling well and people are impressed by the fact that they are the only baby carrier like that, made in the UK.

Our Ragdoll family are happy as they have some new additions. We have Tom, our first boy ragdoll (and very handsome he is too!), Bonnie, the Scottish lass, and  two larger ragdolls, Betsy and Rosanne who measure 22 inches tall. Rosanne is fairly famous now, due to her role in the Coronation Street trailer. I may have to start charging if people want autographs! Yes, I know it’s unlikely, but some people take their soaps very seriously!

Bob is becoming a bit of a local celebrity, with his puppet mastery. He is constantly demonstrating our hand puppets, although I think it may have been a mistake to get the little mouse finger puppets, as he spends a lots of time making ladies jump on chairs as he can make the mouse “run” over their shoulders. Trouble is, none of these ladies have any children to buy for, so I think that Bob is the attraction for them coming into the shop. A single man would use that to his advantage I think

We also have a new addition to the puppet family. She is a lovely Mummy kangeroo, with two little baby finger puppets in her pouch. Soo cute!

I have decided to include a rant in my blog each time, as I wouldn’t want anyone to think that running a shop is all plain sailing! Also, everyone loves to read a rant, don’t they?

My rant this time is about Health & Safety. Britain has gone safety MAD!! One of our new traditional tin toys is a lovely carousel, made to the standards that toys were made to years ago. It catches everyone’s eye when they come into the shop. Trouble is you have to be Age 14 and over to play with it! For a start, most 14 year olds wouldn’t look twice at it, as you can’t tune it into MSN or Facebook and also, how did children ever survive playing with toys like these with no safety warnings? I haven’t heard of many people being maimed or damaged for life after playing with them! We all blame these regulations on America as litigation is king there, but we have found out that over there, this same toys only has a recommendation of Age 8 and over. So, we must be more stupid here! Maybe we should all live in a padded cell until we are old enough to be allowed out safely on our own. Yes, there are some grown ups who should be in a padded cell, but that’s another story and no, i don’t mean any of our customers:-))

Rant over, till next time.

Carol & Bob

April 2008

Its now 1 year since we opened “Sprogs” - a children’s toy and clothes shop in the heart of the Cotswolds.

We still think we were mad to do it! After all, neither of us is on the right side of 40. In fact, one of us is nearly on the wrong side of 60! Having said that, we could have just retired gracefully and been bored and broke. Instead, we chose to take on a completely new challenge - we,re still broke but never bored!

I’m Carol and my husband is Bob. We run “Sprogs,” a little shop selling children’s toys and clothes in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, which is a small town in the Cotswolds. We sell traditional, wooden, tin and fairtrade toys and clothes from baby to age 8.

Neither of us had ever run a shop before and although we have 5 children between us we had no idea what it would be like to do this MAD thing!

So, how did we start? Well, Bob bought a book called “How To Run Your Own Shop,” read it from cover to cover and then said “OK, lets do it!”

A year on, it has been “interesting” to say the least. Hard work? Yes - bloody hard work! Rewarding? Yes, very. Has it turned Bob into the oldest 5 year old? YES! (oops, given away which one of us is the wrong side of 60 now!)

The day starts with a general tidy up and testing of all the toys. Bob says this is vital and that he needs to check that they all work. Mmm, funny how he always spends longer checking the puppets though? Well, anyway, I usually indulge him in this and get on with checking the emails for orders through our website - www.sprogs.org.uk.

Our bestselling toys have been our lovely Rag Dolls. All ethically produced and beautifully made. They all have their own names and they look so cute just sitting there on their own shelf. The puppets that we do have really inspired Bob and he spends most of the day demonstrating them all to children and parents. He’s become so good now that last week a parent asked if he came free with the puppet!! I regularly thank parents for bringing their children in to play with him!

The picture at the top is our latest puppet - Mummy Tawny Owl and her Babies - irrisistable!

The idea of this blog is to tell our story really. It’s quite unusual for two people at our time of life to change their working life so drastically, and we hope others will find it interesting as well as entertaining. Hopefully we will update every couple of weeks. It would be really nice to hear from anyone who has thoughts on anything that we post on here.

Our new product this month is “The Baby Sling”. We have just got stock of these and I predict fun and games ahead. I have created a small display of these in the baby section and have foolishly printed a sign saying “Please ask for a demonstration”. Now, this is where it will be interesting. Neither Bob nor I had a baby sling when our children were small. Yes we had baby carriers but these slings are another ball game altogether. The ones we have chosen to stock are ring slings, very simple to use, no fussy fastenings etc and all made in the UK (we really get happy when we find such a product - made in the UK is so rare we have discovered). Having said that they are simple to use, I fully expect to get a phone call on one of my rare days away from the shop, saying that Bob has put on a sling to demonstrate and is unable to extricate himself from it. I think we may have to have some practise runs! The thought of my almost 6ft hubby encased in a baby sling does appeal to my sense of humour though!

Almost as funny as when a mum asked if we sold “GroBags” the other day, and Bob directed her to the garden centre. I had to do a quick bit of training with him on the new fangled idea of a sleeping bag for babies that for some reason are called gro bags sometimes. Oh dear , never mind he’ll learn - soon.

Thats it for now, thanks for listening!

Carol & Bob

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