Ladybird spotting while walking in the rain

I'm training for the Shine Walk for Cancer Research UK which takes place in late September. I realised that I'm already a bit behind with the training and while I've done similar events before I don't want to be complacent about it.  It was pretty damp weather today, but I managed to persuade  Hubbie to join me for a walk with the aim of stopping in some charity shops to look for second hands games for the Nintendo DS that I gave our older son a few months ago. He is a big fan and his favourite Mario kart game has stopped working so I've been trying to find replacements to keep him happy before his birthday in a month's time.

So anyway the plan was to walk to the shops and have a look for games and also to clock some mileage for my fundraising walk. There are plenty of second hand games for other games consoles, but apparently no one gives way the ones we wanted. We found that there are no second hand DS games in the local shops, so I was browsing at other things. I was amazed and delighted to spot these beauties in a box on the floor.

I've wanted to get classic ladybird books for my boys for years now. I used to have an extensive collection of them, that I had painstakingly collected from jumble sales and school fairs with my pocket money. I even asked for a small bookshelf to keep them all on in my room. I passed them onto my younger siblings in the hope that they would also enjoy them, but they seemed to just disappear when I left home. I suspect my younger siblings had something to do with this, but unfortunately I can't prove it.

So this afternoon I spotted a box of these books under a table in the Oxfam book and music store and it was like a treasure trove. I could easily have bought all of them, but I tempered my enthusiasm and spotted a couple more in the next few shops we went to as well. I am delighted to have some science books, classic stories and even some books that Baby Boy will enjoy. He was really pleased with the book about ducks and swans and Big Boy made a beeline for the one about the police force. I'm so looking forward to having a nostalgic journey through these.