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Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 01 Mar 2017, 17:48
by Wolfgang
sixret wrote:
Anita Bensoussane wrote:
We don't have a pond either but I also see the occasional single frog while gardening. I've seen toads a couple of times as well and I took care to admire their eyes because Enid Blyton often talks about toads' beautiful coppery eyes in her stories and poems.
For some reasons, I find your description funny because my mind is making a mental picture of you looking at toads' eyes while reading your description. :lol:

I think you're right, Rob. Their two hind legs grow first then their two front legs. :D
If I'm not completely wrong, it's the way to keep toads from frogs apart - frogs grow their hind legs first, toads their fronts legs. I think it's even described in one Enid Blyton book or story.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 01 Mar 2017, 18:10
by sixret
Thank you, Wolfgang. Will find the info using Google tomorrow. :D

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 01 Mar 2017, 19:48
by Courtenay
Moonraker wrote:How odd to keep frogs indoors in an aquarium. I am sure they'd be happier outside.
Enid does describe why they were in the aquarium in the first place...

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 08:35
by Anita Bensoussane
Moonraker wrote:How odd to keep frogs indoors in an aquarium. I am sure they'd be happier outside.
Judging from the opening paragraph of this week's letter, the frogs in the aquarium had a lucky escape!

Funny to think of pond-weed and flowers being sent through the post!

A lovely springtime poem and a puzzle poem too - quite an easy one.

Thanks, Tony, for putting these letters up every week. :D

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/blyt ... perid=1047" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 09:44
by Moonraker
Anita Bensoussane wrote:
Moonraker wrote:How odd to keep frogs indoors in an aquarium. I am sure they'd be happier outside.
Judging from the opening paragraph of this week's letter, the frogs in the aquarium had a lucky escape!
Very true!

This weeks letters aren't up yet, I will take a look later.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 11:19
by Courtenay
Moonraker wrote: This weeks letters aren't up yet, I will take a look later.
Aren't they? :wink: I read them earlier, just after Anita posted, via the link that she included... Glad we're not having a late-season cold snap as Enid was in 1933! :shock:

Lovely idea of the school in the country sending flowers and other "Nature specimens" through the post to the city school, although I wonder how good a condition they (the flowers etc.) would have been in by the time they arrived!

Bobs is amusing as ever, although they must have been very large snowflakes for him and Sandy to supposedly mistake them for duck feathers! :lol: I do enjoy these letters each week — thanks from me too, Tony.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 11:24
by Rob Houghton
Very interesting to read about what happened to the frogs who woke up too early. Just recently I've read a couple of Enid's short stories where this idea is explored - The Foolish Frog in the book 'We Want A Story' and the very similar Big Eyes The Frog in the Yellow Story Book. Both are about frogs who decide to play and get trapped 'the wrong side of the serface' when the lake or pond freezes, and of course they are taught a lesson at the same time as her readers are taught something about frogs hibernating! It shows how Enid often used real-life happenings in her stories - but luckily the frogs in her stories narrowly escape being killed! 8)

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 15:06
by Moonraker
My apologies to all. For some obscure reason I thought it was the 15th today. Not helped as frogs are again in the news! :oops:

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 16:37
by Rob Houghton
I've heard of 'The Lost Weekend' - but you seem to have lost a whole week!! :wink:

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 18:11
by Kate Mary
I thought Enid's remark 'I expect when you get this letter the weather will be nice and warm' was a bit optimistic it's only early March after all!

When I read about the schools that write to Enid I always imagine the country schools being like the ones in Miss Read's books and the town ones like the one my mother went to and told me about. I still have her school photos from about 1933, perhaps she heard Enid's column read out. Thank you Tony for continuing to publish these letters on the website.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 08 Mar 2017, 19:40
by John Pickup
Enid's remark about it being the coldest day she has known shows how temperamental the weather can be in March. Here in Lincolnshire this afternoon the temperature reached 14 degrees Centigrade and it was very pleasant in the sun. Bobs is as daft as always.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 15 Mar 2017, 14:21
by Anita Bensoussane
http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/blyt ... perid=1048" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An interesting account of the floods around Old Thatch. I love Enid Blyton's description of her goldfish swimming out of the little round pond and "gaily away round the rockery", having "gone to seek adventure in the big world beyond!" I wish we had a photo of her in her rubber boots, chasing the goldfish with a net! But maybe it was actually gardener Dick Hughes who did that! It's also fun to picture the ducks sailing over the cabbage tops!

I bet Bobs didn't really feel sorry for the rabbit which had managed to scramble up a tree. I expect he thought what a tasty meal it would make! :wink:

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 15 Mar 2017, 17:15
by Kate Mary
I've never heard of a rabbit up a tree but I guess it's preferable to drowning in it's burrow. Poor thing I hope it got down again. Plenty of daffodils out now and I heard a skylark yesterday while on a country walk, with luck I might hear a cuckoo later in the year, I'm hopeful anyway. I haven't heard one in years but neither have I heard a skylark for years either. Enid gives an amusing account of the floods but the reality was probably less enjoyable. Great letters.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 22 Mar 2017, 10:07
by Moonraker
Can you imagine Tupping rescuing a fish on dry land? I had to chuckle at Bobs' attempt to eat some frogspawn. Never a dull moment at Old Thatch!

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/blyt ... perid=1049" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 22 Mar 2017, 10:29
by Courtenay
I missed last week's letter for some reason, so I've enjoyed two this week. I also hope that rabbit got down from the tree safely! Also amusing to hear of Enid chasing the goldfish that escaped from the pond in the floods. Now this week we have a pike left behind in the ditch! Never a dull moment, indeed.

Bobs' encounter with the "jelly" reminds me of one of the Adventures of Pip stories, in which Pip, after a frog upsets him, decides to take the frogs' eggs and feed them to the ducks. He promptly finds that he can barely carry the slippery frogspawn and the ducks won't eat it! Always thought that was very spiteful of Pip to even try to do that, but it does make a memorable point about why frogs lay their eggs in jelly, which of course is why Enid wrote the story.