15. Playmobil

when expeditions go wrong

6th February 2025

Back in 2012 we moved to a 1930’s English house with a large mature garden. In the general clearing and sorting that comes with every house move we spent a sunny day in the garden getting to grips with what was in the borders.

Picking through a particularly tangled section I saw a fleeting pop of red, and reaching in I found 2 small Playmobil figures forgotten by a child, possibly decades before. Their red plastic bodies were dull and their white legs were yellowed with age. One had two broken arms, the other a missing arm and a broken arm. One had slightly longer hair and a little white bobble hat. They were tiny survivors of a wilderness expedition gone wrong.

That August, as well as being hot and sunny, was the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympic games. To make amends for the rough time they’d had we put them next to our tv for the duration of that sporting summer; our own tiny mascots, and when the nieces were small and visiting they took them on new adventures of their own. Now, many years later we’re in our next house and last week my two little heroic friends made it out of storage and onto the shelf in our new front room in our new town. It’s good to see them, we’ve all been through a lot.

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Dear Jotter: you noticed I’m sure that in this week’s post the written text in my journal ran out of space. This is the first time that has happened, and I will put it down to the fact that I wrote / drew this issue quite late last night when my faculties had already packed up for the day. Rather than start again or create a second page I finished my writing in type. I placed the journal image above the paragraph where the additional text begins to help with reading continuity. Cara x