Shepshed Toy Library

Shepshed Toy Library is now housed in a portakabin at the edge of the Iveshead School campus. It is substantially larger than when I first used it at the Town Council offices in the 1980s.

And it has so much. Big toys as well as small ones. Bags of books, dvds and plenty of puzzles.

I pushed William there in his pushchair this morning, at last feeling free of the dreadful headache I've had for the last week, though still full of cold.

The toy library needs MUCH more publicity. It is such a useful community resource. Mums can borrow up to four toys at a time for three weeks and renew if necessary. I told two parents at the soft play centre in Loughborough Leisure Centre about it this afternoon and they were very impressed. They'd never heard of it before but it's been there for almost 35 years.

And they lost finance from local government when the austerity cuts were brought in, so depend on  member subscriptions and fund raising to keep it going. 

William did not hesitate to identify the toys he wanted to borrow. George wanted to know why I hadn't kept them here, but if I had, William wouldn't have the value of playing with them before we have to return them.

So roll on Shepshed Toy Library, I hope you manage to keep going. I'm thinking of borrowing a slide in the Spring.