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Stirrin' Blog
Harrods in partnership with California Raisins 15th June 2007
by Jhonti, who dressed up as a raisin
Waking up on the Monday morning of the demonstration was bliss. There was a very good reason for this. We were in a hotel rather than at Home. There is something heart-warmingly reassuring about knowing that you are in a place where the main form of entertainment isn’t dodging cowpats and that the building isn’t going to collapse if you breathe on the stairs.
After a breakfast, which I spent most of trying to persuade Mum to just buy a house in Knightsbridge and live here for the rest of time and damn the rest of the family, we arrived at Harrods: The most famous shop in the whole of Knightsbridge.
On arrival we were shown the Toy Department where we would be demonstrating. When I say Toy Department, what I actually mean is a space that is to toy shops what Mount Etna is to hills, and not just in respect to the molten rocks that you had to avoid as they whizzed past your face at regular intervals. There were an enormous number of toys and even your illustrious writer you hasn’t touched a toy for a good number of years (well minutes) was captivated. Imagine therefore the job of trying to keep the interest of children when there was a whole world of other attractions just a glance away. This, however, was the task in hand.
The workshops, therefore, had to be short and to the point. Thus the team for stirrinstuff, aided impeccably by the team from Californian Raisins (and the Californian Raisin himself) mainly helped the children in making banana ice cream and decorating cookies, both with raisins. There was also a lot of interest shown in the couscous and pesto salad in the pepper lunchbox. One girl, clearly shy having eaten her plastic Barbie lunchbox at school, was weary about the idea, although her mother, clearly an eco-warrior of the first water, was much more engaged.
If this wasn’t enough the children also got goodie-bags to go home with. Although only a few were excited at the prospect of a certificate on their wall, all couldn’t believe their luck when they discovered a whistle in their bags. Surprisingly chaos did not ensue.
The kids also had the treat of meeting the “Californian Raisin.” I place Californian Raisin in brackets because in actuality (avert your eyes anyone who still believes in The Raisin/Santa/Rupert the Bear) some of the time a hot and sweaty nineteen year old who couldn’t see his feet and thus spent much of the time treading on prams. Disturbing as this was for the prams and the contents therein, it did give me a certain Godzilla that hasn’t quite warn off.
After two fantastic days in Harrods helped so generously by the amazing staff of Harrods and particularly their toy section we had to head out of the Capital and back to sunny Scotland. Still raisin soaked porridge (rainwater being in abundant supply for the porridge making) ain’t that bad once you’re used to it.
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