always depending on the kindness of strangers

Pumpkin.

The amount of .....

STUFF

Required in order to have a child is simply astronomical. I'm surprised the human race lasted this long. I mean without a bouncy bubby bassinet, how on earth did Winston Churchill's parents manage? We all know that it's obvious that such luminaries as Ghengis Khan obviously did not have a Phil and Ted's E3 stroller with optional pannier bags, or they would never have even considered rampaging through Asia and pillaging all that stuff.

With that in mind, my sweet pumpkin, we have been trawling various giant babystores (of which I have spoken before), but also, being thrifty folk, we have put out our feelers to see who wants to give what away.

This, pumpkin, is where freecycle steps in. Without wanting to get all evangelical about it, freecycle is an astonishing concept in which people, who have stuff they don't want, tell a big group of people in their local area about it. The chances of this disclosure hitting someone who wants the item in that area is fairly high, given the number of people who subscribe to the list.

So this is how it works, punkling. Someone FABULOUS posts to the list that they have a large box of baby paraphernalia, and that they're in the suburb that your dad works in. Your dad then responds, and is standing on their doorstep within a matter of minutes. They hand your dad a MASSIVE box of babygoods, he stumbles through a few words of thanks and gets on his way.

Thanks a million, Virginia