smyths

Today I was introduced to the children’s toy shop Smyths. There’s one in Reading near the Madejski stadium.

To my surprise I found that their books are cheaper than those at Amazon, but for the point of description here, I will link to the Amazon items as it saves me repeating some of the detail.

There was a book which caught my eye 365 Stories for Boys. I’m not keen on getting our dear child hooked on Disney characters, but as a book full of stories that I can read to him and get him used to bed time stories it should serve the purpose well.

Later as he grows I think I’ll begin reading more traditional stories such as Robin Hood and King Arthur. Perhaps books from the BBC’s top 100 would be better.

I was a little annoyed at the lack of Lego Technics and Mechano at Smyths but I guess people are not interested in that anymore. It just seems that boys now want Lego Star Wars and computer games. There was a basic chemistry set there and a shonky looking telescope, I guess if you want more than that you should go somewhere more specialised. Perhaps I’m asking too much, there was no fishing tackle there or wood working tools, things that I remember fondly from my childhood. As a parent, perhaps I should stop expecting the retail sector to bring my child up and that I should do the leg work and find things that I want him to become familiar with.

Changed my phone contract, now with T-Mobile, 500 minutes, unlimited SMS and 1GB of data, £8.50/month. Much better than the aging Orange contract that I was on for 79p less. Bigger numbers all round, matching inflation.