For the story so far, click here 🙂
to be continued …
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans, art, comics, juvenile fiction, watercolour
For the story so far click here 🙂
to be continued …
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans, art, comics, juvenile fiction, watercolour
For the story so far, click here 🙂
to be continued …. 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
For the story so far click here 🙂
…. continues tomorrow 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
For the story so far, click here 🙂
… continues tomorrow 😉
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
For the story so far, click here 🙂
… continues tomorrow 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
…. to be continued
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
…. to be continued 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
…. to be continued
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
….. to be continued
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
and so it begins 😉
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan comic, vegan comic for children, children’s story, vegan children, aquariums, animals, animals in captivity, animals for entertainment, marine animals, fish, crustaceans
A new episode of Venus Aqueous starts here on Monday!
Don’t miss it! 😀
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😀
Click here to read the whole story 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan story, vegan conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory, mystery, code-cracking, juvenile fiction, children’s story, vegan children’s story, the rebel gang and the number ciphers, art, collage, creative writing
Gasp! 😮
Story concludes tomorrow but if you’ve missed any of it you’d better catch up now!
Here’s the whole thing 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan story, vegan conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory, mystery, code-cracking, juvenile fiction, children’s story, vegan children’s story, the rebel gang and the number ciphers, art, collage, creative writing
😮 Continues tomorrow 🙂
Or read to the end now 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan story, vegan conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory, mystery, code-cracking, juvenile fiction, children’s story, vegan children’s story, the rebel gang and the number ciphers, art, collage, creative writing
continues tomorrow 🙂
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codes, number ciphers, code-breaking story, children’s story, vegan story, vegan children’s story, vegetarian, humour, art, collage
Continues next week 🙂
or you can read the whole story now 😀
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vegan, vegetarian, conspiracy theory, mystery, collage, art, creative writing, children’s story, juvenile fiction, humour, vegan children’s story
Ooh, it’s getting thinky now 😮
Come back tomorrow to read the next bit – or read it all now! 😉
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vegan, vegetarian, conspiracy theory, mystery, collage, art, creative writing, children’s story, juvenile fiction, humour
What a daring investigator she is – caring not about her own safety, doing whatever it takes to bring the rebels to justice 😮
Next instalment tomorrow, or read the whole story now 😀
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…. Continues tomorrow
Or read it here now 🙂
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vegan story, vegan children’s story, humour, vegetarian, creative writing, art, collage, conspiracy theory
😮 continues tomorrow, or read it all now 😀
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Rejoin Apostrophe Blackett et al on Monday 🙂
Have a good weekend 😀
If you don’t want to wait you can read the whole code-cracking story now 😮
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vegan, vegan story, vegetarian, vegan children’s story, conspiracy, mystery, codes, ciphers, art, craft, collage, paper crafts, humour
Ooh, clever, clever.
Continues tomorrow 😉
And here’s the whole story 😀
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan story, vegan children’s story, conspiracy, mystery, fiction, juvenile fiction, codes, ciphers, collage, art, paper crafts
Now, that’s suspicious! 😮
Story continues tomorrow or you can read it all now 🙂
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Ooh, intrigue!
Story continues tomorrow … or you can read the whole thing here now 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, vegan story, creative writing, collage, vegan children’s story, art, paper, paper crafts
The Rebel Gang and the Number Ciphers starts here tomorrow!
Don’t miss this code-cracking tale of mystery and intrigue! 😉
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vegan, vegetarian, children’s story, juvenile fiction, short story, vegan story,
See you next year 😀 ❤ ❤ ❤
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Kingthings Gothique font by Kevin King
available for download from font squirrel
Jingle Bells – Country Take from http://www.freexmasmp3.com/
iChoc: the great taste of a clean conscience 😀
The Anderson family are not complete without Denzel so here he is 😀
I followed this free pattern of a Scottie dog by Sue Stratford
and made him look as much like Denzel as I could. I knitted him in white and stitched on the orange colour after he was sewn and stuffed. He’s a bit big when he’s standing next to the family but I think you’d be hard pushed to find a smaller pattern 🙂
Alternatively, if you’re not a knitter or you fancy doing something different, how about making an origami Denzel?
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vegan, vegetarian, homemade, crafts, origami, knitting, needlework, papercrafts, dogs, toys, handmade toys
Old Red is fully furnished and ready to be enjoyed by the Andersons – so where are they? Where are the Andersons? Oh look, here they are:
Miranda knitted Aiden and Cara and Casey and Brietta, and it didn’t take her long.
She got the pattern from loveknitting.com where it is free to download. It’s a Goldilocks finger puppet by Amanda Berry which, at 7cm tall, is just the right size but, since we didn’t want finger puppets, Miranda stuffed the skirt, and sewed up the middle of it to make trousers for the boys, adjusted their heights and gave them the appropriate hair etc (including a beard for Aiden) and there you have it – The English Family Anderson, all ready to live happily ever after in their bus 😀
Now, where’s Denzel? 😉
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knitting, crafts, needlework, dolls, toys, homemade, handmade, vegan, vegetarian, recycling
You may have noticed that in the end the bus isn’t furnished exactly as shown in the story. That is due to the fact that it has the proportions of a camper van because of the pattern I used. This Old Red is therefore not long enough to fit in all the furniture I’d planned to include. So I took some liberties. Those who have read The English Family Anderson will know that Old Red’s travelling days are over so Miranda suggested that they may well have removed the steering wheel and driver’s seat to give them more space. That makes sense doesn’t it?
I hope you enjoy the final how-to video which shows the creation of a table, two ottomans for seating (and which contain Brietta’s and Casey’s sleeping bags and bedrolls), and a wardrobe/cupboard for food, utensils, crockery, cutlery, a washing up bowl, and towels and stuff. There’s a folded blanket on top of the wardrobe and a basket of potatoes on top of that. Their few clothes are kept in the drawers under Mum and Dad’s bed. They use the great outdoors for washing and they’ve built a compost toilet out there too 🙂 So they’re all set.
I hope you’ll enjoy making your own camper-bus and I look forward to seeing pictures when you’re done 😀
ps: if knitting’s not your thing, you could always make one out of cardboard 🙂
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vegan, vegetarian, recycling, homemade, toys, model bus, handmade bus, crafts, knitting, needlework, handmade toys,
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vegan, vegetarian, recycling, homemade, crafts, drawing, sticking, making toys, homemade toys
If you look back at Part 3 of the bus-making process you will see how I started work on the wheels and the floor. This is how I finished them:
It turned out after all that the toothbrushes weren’t quite long enough to use as a single axle between two wheels so I used four – one for each wheel.
The paper I used wasn’t quite long enough to cover the very back of the bus floor (see above), but since I knew the bed was going to cover the back I decided it didn’t matter.
And there you have it! 😀 Be gentle, those wheels will come off quite easily. And of course, if you’ve used toothbrushes like me, they won’t go round. But they will look nice and, after all, Old Red has retired now so she just wants to sit still 🙂
And there’s a nice new floor!
That’s it for now. Today I’m going to make a wood-burning stove out of this pill bottle ↓ I’ll tell you about it tomorrow 😀
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vegan, vegetarian, toys, homemade, crafts, needlework, knitting, sewing,
First you need a large, empty matchbox.
Find some decorative paper that looks like it would make good-looking bedding …
… and wrap up the matchbox like a birthday present. Then find another matchbox.
Measure it and mark the middle.
Take out the drawer and cut the insides and outsides in half.
Now you have two drawers. Put them back in. They’re going to provide the Andersons with under-bed storage space.
Cut out some more of the decorative paper and stick it to the front of the drawers.
Tape the drawers together, side by side, ….
…. and stick the ‘mattress’ on top of them.
Now you need some pillows:
Find a scrap of pretty material. Cut it, fold it (right sides together), sew it (leaving one side open), and …
… turn it right side out, stuff it with cut up bits of rag, or yarn or whatever soft stuff you’ve got lying around, and sew up the open side.
My bed still needed something more to make it cozy so I found this lovely beaded doily (the kind used to protect a glass of lemonade from flies at the picnic) and thought it would make a lovely bedspread.
And I knitted a little blanket for warmth.
Et voilà!
Now I must get the floor done!
😀
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vegan, vegetarian, crafts, knitting, paper crafts, sewing, homemade, homemade toy, model bus, model furniture, children’s toys
It’s perhaps not as cool as a sports injury but, when you’re too excited to pace yourself, a repetitive strain injury is just as inconvenient. I have been knitting for several hours a day for about two weeks with no ill effects but after making the bus’s wheels I had such bad shoulder pain that I had to take a break. It seems feeble because all I was doing was winding yarn around a cardboard circle, over and over – it’s not what you would call hard work. But there it is. I’ve been stopped in my tracks 🙂
This is what I’ve got so far:
I decided to make the bus wheels by cutting out cardboard circles which are a little bit smaller than the required (guessed) bus wheel size, cutting a smaller circle out of the middle of them, and winding yarn around them like you would if you were making pompoms. Unlike when you’re making pompoms, you only need one cardboard circle per wheel, and you stop winding just before you get to the centre, leaving a tiny hole in the middle for the axle.
The axles are going to be old toothbrushes which just happen to be a little bit wider than the bus.
I didn’t have any black yarn but decided that doesn’t matter – groovy people like the Andersons would probably enjoy having different coloured wheels 🙂
When I’d finished the wheels I needed a floor to attach them to. I’m no longer following the pattern so this is an experiment which I hope will work. I’m winging it.
I drew around the bottom of the bus on cardboard and cut it out.
Then I cast on enough stitches to cover about two thirds (or nearly three quarters) the width of the bus floor. I haven’t proved this works yet, but the knitting will naturally get wider than the cast-on row and I want the finished piece to be slightly smaller than the cardboard so that it has to be stretched taut to cover it. It remains to be seen whether I cast on the right amount of stitches to make it work.
dot dot dot 😉
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vegan, vegetarian, crafts, knitting, paper crafts, sewing, homemade, homemade toy, model bus, model furniture, children’s toys
For Part 1 click here 🙂
Ok, on Wednesday I got as far as sandwiching the stiff card between the inside and outside of the two long sides of the bus, so on Thursday I did the same with the front and back ends:
As with the long sides of the bus yesterday, I drew around the knitted pieces on stiff card (tidy up the lines with a ruler) and cut out the insert. If you find, as I did, that your inside and outside pieces are not exactly the same size (due to one being made with slightly thicker yarn), then draw round the bigger piece and stretch the smaller one to match.
The green inside piece (above) came up smaller than the outside front of bus so I stretched it to cover the card as you can see. It’s a fiddly business. I found the best way to make sure your cardboard is the right shape and size is to sew together (wrong sides facing) two adjacent edges of the knitted pieces before inserting the card. Then slot the card into the corner you’ve sewn and stretch the knitting to meet at the opposite sides and pin them. If you find when you try to do this that the card’s just too big, or your window is too small, for the pieces to be sewn together around it, then you can pencil in the correct lines, unpin it, trim it and try again. Eventually you’ll get it all sewn nice and tight.
The front of the bus needed some finishing touches so …
… I drew some buttons and dials onto some of that gridded material they use for cross stitch which I happened to have some of (it’s amazing the stuff people donate to charity shops – Miranda picks up loads of discarded craft items from the Raystede Charity Shop where she volunteers).
Then I sewed it inside the front of the bus.
I did the same for the ‘Old Red’ sign and the number plate. After that I put together the back end of the bus.
You will notice that the back has more height above the window than the front. That’s because when it’s put together it folds over to make a partial roof. You’ll see what I mean when I put it together.
I thought these pretty, heart-shaped, wooden buttons would look nice under the window in Mr and Mrs Anderson’s bedroom 🙂 (If you read episode 3 of The English Family Anderson you will see what their bus interior looks like. The back end is a little bedroom for Mr & Mrs)
I had knitted the back number plate in the appropriate golden yellow colour so I didn’t want to cover it with a white or cream number plate (cross stitch material). So this time I just wrote the registration directly onto the knitting with a black felt-tip. You can’t read it but I think it looks like letters and numbers in the distance which are out of focus so I’m happy with it 🙂
All four sides done. Now it was time to put the bus together.
I began sewing with two adjacent pieces lined up together as above (NB – Miranda found some more bright red yarn after I’d finished knitting!). Then, when I was over half way up …
… I was able to stand the pieces up in their correct position, enabling me make the front piece follow the curve of the side piece. Again, don’t worry about neat stitching. Imperfections have their own charm and, don’t forget, this is an old bus which has probably been patched up plenty of times so it wouldn’t be authentic if it looked pristine 🙂
One at a time I sewed together all sides of Old Red. You can see below how the back piece folds over, above the window, and is sewn to the top of the back of the sides, making a partial roof. In the pattern from which this is adapted, the front also folds over but I wanted to keep my front upright because it has the bus name above the window. Plus I wanted there to be a bit more light in, and easier access to, the inside. I forgot to mention yesterday that I also slightly altered the pattern for the front of the bus to make the windows slightly bigger by making the vertical strut in the middle narrower (only 2 stitches wide instead of 4) so that it looked more like the front of Old Red in my illustrations.
Look – you can peek inside 🙂
Our Old Red is approximately 30cm x 15cm x 15cm, not including the name sticking up on the front.
Still to do:
So I’d better get on with that then 😉
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needlework, knitting, sewing, homemade, crafts, vegan, vegetarian, toys, homemade toys, model bus
Click for Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Denzel the dog 🙂
I found this fantastic pattern online and decided to have a go at adapting it to make The English Family Andersons’ bus 😀
The beauty of this pattern is that the bus can be played with inside and out. As I type, Miranda is making little people (the Andersons) to live in it 😀
So, I began with red for the outside of the bus …
… and then made another piece in multi-coloured yarn for the inside. The Andersons have decorated their home very colourfully so I did what I could, with the colours I had, to reproduce their bus interior.
I made the other outside and the other inside long side of bus and then made the front and back ends, inside and out:
I ran out of bright red yarn, so I had to finish the outside of the bus in the closest colour I had which was a sort of burgundy. I decided that it didn’t matter because the colour of old buses does fade 🙂 Of course at this point I am not following the VW camper design, I’m trying to make it look like Old Red.
The outside piece for the front of the bus includes the colours for the headlights, number plate, radiator and the bus number above the window.
So that was eight pieces done – four insides and four outsides. Then it was time to add some buttons 🙂
The Anderson’s bus has two headlights on either side so I sewed some white buttons in position for them. Unfortunately I don’t have any bright orange buttons for the indicators so I had to leave that for now. I might add those with yarn later.
I added some black stitches to the radiator. Then it was time to start putting it together.
To make the bus rigid, the campervan pattern provides templates to cut out pieces of plastic grid to fasten between the knitted pieces, however I decided to make these out of card. I flattened out a knitted piece as well as I could on some stiff cardboard, drew round it and cut it out. I didn’t cut out the individual windows, just one big window to go between the knitted windows. The knitted frames is all that’s needed to separate them. You’ll see what I mean. The cardboard inserts need to be sized so that the knitting needs to be stretched taut to cover them.
I pinned together the top and one end of the inside and outside of one side of the bus with wrong sides facing together. Then I sewed it.
Then I put the matching cardboard cut-out between them and stretched the knitting flat across it so that I could pin it in place at the bottom and opposite end. I finished sewing all the way round the outside and then around the window frames. I sewed the inside and outside knitting of the window frames together, tucking all loose ends inside, out of sight. As I’ve said before, I am not neat at needlework, but that doesn’t matter. It seems to work out somehow.
That’s all I’ve got so far but I’m looking forward to putting the rest of it together. Then I can get started on the furniture! I’ll keep you posted 😉
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Peanut butter, chocolate chip, oat cookies – vegan, gluten-free, organic and fair trade: What more could you want? 😀
I just felt peckish so I raided the cupboard for ingredients and found what I needed:
These are so quick and easy 😀
Weigh out 8 ounces of oats and put them through the food processor to turn them into flour.
Put the oat flour in your mixing bowl and add 4 ounces of sugar. Mix well.
Then break up about 60 grams of chocolate (I used Moo Free) and put it into the food processor with about 3 heaped spoons full of peanut butter, I think (it’s up to you how much you use, I can’t actually remember exactly how much I added this time 🙂 ).
Whiz the peanut butter and chocolate around with the ‘S’ blade for a few seconds until the chocolate is in little chips and beautifully combined with the soft peanut butter. Of course you can do all this by hand, it’ll just take a little longer 🙂
By the way, the peanut butter is unsalted with nothing added – it’s nothing but organic roasted peanuts.
Leave the peanut butter and chocolate to one side while you add about 100 ml of sunflower oil and 5 tablespoons of water to the flour and sugar in the bowl and mix well.
Then add the peanut butter and chocolate chips and mix it in until you have your moist cookie mixture.
This is an oily mixture so you shouldn’t need to grease the baking trays but I lined them with eco-friendly greaseproof paper which is optional.
Put heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto your baking trays and then flatten them with the back of a wet spoon. This recipe makes about 24 cookies.
Bake for 20 minutes at 180°c (in a pre-heated fan oven).
Remove and put on a rack to cool.
Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Ooh, these are good!
Enjoy them with a cup of tea 😀
Here’s how:
First, find a pattern. I used this one but there are plenty of others to choose from, including lots of free ones you can download. So, I won’t give you pattern details, you can just download whichever pattern you fancy and then make her look like Reflecto Girl. If you don’t know how to knit you can learn
Or, if you don’t want to do that, you can make a rag doll instead 🙂
Anyway, this is what I did:
As per the pattern, first I knitted the legs. I used DK (Double Knitting thickness) acrylic yarn from the bag of oddments in the attic – no need to buy anything new, and if you don’t happen to have lilac, I know Renée wouldn’t mind her outfit being a different colour.
Then I pinned and sewed the back of leg and top of foot seams
and stuffed them with cut up bits of an old cotton T-shirt (no need to buy stuffing – recycle all the way!)
Then I knitted the body. I thought Renée would like a pretty cream vest with a pink decorative stripe close to the bottom edge.
I sewed it, stuffed it and attached it to the legs.
Then I made and attached her head,
followed by her arms.
Then it was time to do her hair, which I was very much looking forward to. I started with the fringe by just sewing some gorgeous orange yarn into her head making sort of loops between the top of her head and her face, just above where her eyebrows would be.
Making her gorgeous long locks was quite time consuming but worth it. I sewed the yarn into the back of her head, alternating between a small stitch to hold the yarn in place and then a long loop which reached down her back. Then another small stitch, then another long loop. The stitches began at the top of her head and gradually covered the top three quarters of it so that she wouldn’t have any bald patches. When her scalp was covered I cut the loops so that she had thick, long hair.
Then I sewed on some eyes and ….
… some lips. I’m not a neat sew-er but that doesn’t matter, just have fun with it 🙂
Then I made her top (included in the pattern) and embroidered – if you can call it that 😉 – the Reflecto Girl logo on the front 🙂
And then of course she needed a mask! This is not included in the pattern so you’ll just have to make it up – you can do it! What I did, if you’re interested, is
Then I sewed in the ends of yarn and tidied up the eye holes with a couple of stitches sewn with the same yarn so they’re invisible 🙂
Yes, ok, I know it looks like a giant sleep mask, but if you look carefully you can see her little eyes through the holes. Come on, use your imagination 😉
And that’s not all –
she had to have her red Wonder Woman bag! Accessories are the best!
For this I cast on ….. oh, you know what, I can’t remember how many stitches or rows I did – basically you need it to be about this big against the doll. Knit a simple rectangle that can be folded and sewn into a bag this size. I attached a press stud so that it can be fastened.
Her bag has a picture of Wonder Woman’s face in a circle on the front – remember? Luckily I had a scrap of fabric with circles on, just the right size.
So I drew Wonder Woman’s face in the circle, cut it out and sewed it to the front of the bag 🙂
Oh, and I knitted a long handle to make it a shoulder bag. Three stitches, size 10 needles, stocking stitch (ie 1 row knit, 1 row purl) until it’s long enough for the doll to wear over her shoulder like so:
Now, Reflecto Girl wouldn’t be Reflecto Girl without her …
… Dounto! So I made one. It needed to be just the right size to fit in her bag 🙂
The card I used was quite thin so I cut out two to stick together and make the ‘mirror’ stronger.
On one side I drew round a smaller circle to make the mirror glass.
Then I added the Celtic-ish symbols and letters …
… and coloured it in 🙂
All done! Reflecto Girl has everything she needs to get the job done!
Let’s play!
Why don’t you make yourself a Reflecto Girl doll? There’s lots of fun to be had.
***
Now, I need to make a Distracto Boy, and a Venus Aqueous, and a Megan and a Flos , oh, and an English Family Anderson! – it’s a good job I’ve got a big bag of yarn oddments 😀 It’s going to be a busy weekend 😉
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crafts, home made, knitting, toys, action figures, vegan, veggie kids, vegan superhero, things to make and do
“That’s to tell you what the shoes are made of. That’s the symbol for man made material,” she explained, pointing to one of the shapes on the label, “and that’s the symbol for leather. So the soles of these shoes – the bit you walk on – are made of synthetic, man made material, and the uppers – the top part – are made of leather.”
She smiled and told everyone to go and sit down. She did like it when her pupils asked her about things unconnected with lessons. It showed they had active minds.
Luke hung back. He was furious. Not only had he been humiliated by Simon Butler, but his own mother had lied to him. He took off his other shoe and threw them both into the swing bin in the girls’ toilets. Then he pulled out loads and loads of paper towels, screwed them up, soaked them under the tap and tossed them into the bin on top of the shoes. He put his blue plimsolls back on his feet where they belonged and, somewhat calmer now, went to class.
When Mum met him from school at half past three he smiled and was friendly, pleased to be finished school for the day. She was happy too. The afternoon weather had really brightened up and lifted her spirits. They waited for Jared and then walked home. About half way, Mrs Walker noticed that Luke wasn’t wearing his new shoes.
“Where are your new shoes Luke?” she asked, apprehensively.
Luke looked into her questioning eyes and said,
“At lunch time I was jus’ sittin’ quietly on the grass pickin’ wild flowers and makin’ daisy chains for Mrs Tebbut, when suddenly a flock of big black crows flew at me an’ knocked me over! Then they pecked at me shoes ’til they’d got ’em off me feet and then they grabbed ’em with their claws and carried ’em off into the trees. I ‘spect they wanted to make nests in ’em.”
Mum stared at him.
“What has happened to your expensive new shoes Luke? I want the truth!”
“Truth is very important isn’t it?” Luke said thoughtfully, “It’s bad to tell lies. People who tell lies can’t ever be trusted. They’re like the boy who cried wolf. No one’ll ever believe a word they say again.”
Mum’s lips tightened, she looked straight ahead and they continued their walk in silence. When they were nearly home she spoke.
“Luke, your feet have grown, you have to have new shoes.”
“Ok, I’ll have plimsolls. Blue ones please.”
“Plimsolls are no good when it rains.”
“I’ll get wellies for when it rains. Blue would be good.”
Mum looked at him.
“Ok,” she said.
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If you missed the beginning you can read the whole story here 🙂
Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er, the paperback containing the first eight chapters of Luke’s adventures, is available from Amazon in the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada
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vegan, children, children’s story
So Luke had new shoes. Mum said it would be a good idea to wear them around the house for an hour on the first day, then two hours the next, gradually increasing the time until they were comfortable enough to wear all day.
“Wouldn’t have had to do this with plimsolls,” thought Luke as he paced up and down his bedroom.
A week later he wore them to school. He had to admit it was good timing because it had started to rain and it wasn’t pleasant being stuck in wet socks all day. His new shoes kept his feet dry. He would say that for them. And he got a few compliments. Joe said he liked them, and so did Eddie and Susan. Miss Shaw said they were very smart, which undermined his confidence in them a little, but at least Mrs Tebbut hadn’t been impressed. At lunch time Luke changed into his plimsolls for football on the playground – hard, shiny shoes just weren’t good for running in. When the bell went he returned to the cloakroom to change back into his shiny shoes and found Simon Butler looking at them. Luke scowled.
“Wouldn’t have thought you’d wear them ,” said Simon smugly, “that makes you a hypocrite.”
Luke had no idea what a hypocrite was but knew that if Simon Butler was calling him one, it wasn’t something nice. He assumed he was making some derogatory remark about the shoes and decided he was glad that Butler didn’t like them. He didn’t like the stupid stuff Butler wore either.
“If I’m a hypocrite so are you – that horrible jumper makes you the biggest hypocrite in the world for wearing it!” said Luke as he walked away, very satisfied with his comeback.
Simon laughed.
“You don’t know what hypocrite means do you?”
Luke blushed. Simon enlightened him.
“It means someone who doesn’t practice what they preach. You say you won’t eat animals because you don’t want them killed but you’re wearing cow skin on your feet!”
“I am not!” Luke shouted, “these shoes are made of sprayed canvas, stupid! Don’t ya think I made sure o’ that before I let me mum buy ’em? Don’t ya think I’d make sure o’ that?”
Butler smiled his insufferable smile.
“Those are made of leather, it says so on the label. Leather is cow skin!”
Luke trembled with indignation. He knew Butler was lying because he’d seen the label inside his shoe. The word ‘leather’ was not on there. They had an audience now, the whole class was gathering round, eager to see who would get the last word. Luke would not let it be Butler. He took off one of his shoes, looked inside it and then proudly held it up for everyone to see.
“I do not kill animals! I do not pay for animals to be killed! I do not eat animals and I do not wear animal skin!” he said with gravity.
“What is going on out here?” Mrs Tebbut entered the cloakroom in search of her missing class.
“Mrs Tebbut,” said Simon politely, “we were wondering what this means,” he pointed to the label inside Luke’s shoe.
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Story concludes tomorrow, but you can read to the end here now if you don’t want to wait 🙂
Luke Walker and the new shoes
Luke was having a stressful day.
“It’s not fair!” he thought, “I don’t want new shoes; I don’t need new shoes.”
He looked down at his left plimsoll for proof and was satisfied that he could hardly see his big toe.
“In fact,” he said out loud, “I’m sure if someone who dint know it was there looked at my feet, they wun’t notice it at all.”
Mum disagreed. She quite unreasonably insisted that a big toe sticking through a hole in one’s shoe was an unmistakable sign that it was time to get new ones.
It was 4.17pm. Luke and Mum were in the fifth and final shoe shop their home town had to offer.
“This is it Luke,” Mum said testily, “this is the last one. We will be buying shoes from this shop.”
She picked out four different styles and put them down in front of him.
“Choose one.”
Luke looked at them with disgust.
“ Brown? You want me to wear brown shoes? I am not wearin’ brown shoes!”
Mum removed the two brown ones and, through gritted teeth said of the remaining two,
“Choose one of these or I will choose for you!”
If he had to have new shoes when he didn’t even need new shoes he would have chosen blue ones. He would have chosen blue plimsolls. They were comfortable. They were good for running in. And blue happened to be his favourite colour. But Mum said plimsolls were not proper shoes. She said they were not suitable for wearing in wet weather. She said they were not smart enough for school. She said he had to have those shiny sort of hard shoes that give you blisters for the first two weeks. Luke had put up strong resistance all day long but now it looked like he would have to compromise. It came down to two different black shiny shoes and one of them had tassels.
It was clear that he wasn’t going to get the plimsolls so the best he could do was make sure he didn’t get the tassels. He chose the lace-ups. Mum exhaled.
“Finally,” she said.
After Luke had tried them on and walked up and down on the carpet in them, and Mum had squeezed the toe ends of them to see how much growing room there was, the shop lady boxed them up. But just as Mum was about to pay, Luke remembered something. He’d heard a horrible rumour at school which he hoped wasn’t true but he had to be sure. He’d heard Katia tell Susan that shoes are made of cow skin! It was too shocking to contemplate and Luke had assumed Katia, who was always melodramatic, was making it up to get attention. But could she have been telling the truth?
“What are they made of?” Luke asked the shop lady.
“These are made from quality …..”
“Canvas!” Mum interrupted, “they’re made of the same material your plimsolls are made of but they’re sprayed with a special substance that makes them hard and shiny.”
Luke was surprised at his Mum for rudely interrupting someone who was already talking. The times she’d told him off for doing that. And the shop lady was obviously surprised at her too as she looked at her quite strangely. But in a way Luke was glad to discover his Mum didn’t always do everything right. It made her a bit more human.
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continues tomorrow 😀
or you can read the whole story here now 🙂
and there’s lots more interesting facts about turkeys here, including the fact that, in the wild, baby turkeys stay with their mother all year and, though turkeys habitually roost (sleep) in trees, safe above ground level, babies are unable to fly for their first couple of weeks so their mother stays with them on the ground to keep them safe and warm until they are able to fly up into the tree with her.
Love them, don’t eat them ❤ ❤ ❤
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birds, animals, turkeys, Christmas, vegan, vegetarian, Christmas story, vegan Christmas story
And they lived happily ever after 😀
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Read the whole story here 😀
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vegan children’s story, vegan Christmas story, turkeys, animals, birds
continues tomorrow 🙂
or read the whole story now if you like 😀
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vegan children’s story, vegan Christmas story, turkeys, animals, birds
continues tomorrow
but if you just can’t wait you can read the whole story here now 🙂
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vegan children’s story, vegan Christmas story, turkeys, animals, birds
continues tomorrow,
or you can read the whole story here now 🙂
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vegan children’s story, vegan Christmas story, turkeys, animals, birds
continues Monday ….
but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole story here now 🙂
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vegan children’s story, vegan Christmas story, turkeys, animals, birds
Big Blue Sky has been digitally remastered (I don’t really know what that means but it sounds good 😉 ) – actually it’s got a new font and a new illustration and some new cover art – so I thought, seeing as it’s that time of year again, we’d re-tell Clarence and Luca’s story. It begins here:
continues tomorrow 🙂
or you can read the whole digitally remastered 😉 story here now 😀
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vegan children’s story, vegan Christmas story, turkeys, animals, birds
Violet's Vegan Comics 