Did you read Miffy books when you were little? I definitely did, so I was astonished to learn that she’s 70, but delighted to mooch around the pop up in Foyles!
I was very, very tempted by a lamp, I think it would look great in my home office. Just a lovely touch to make it even more me…
I also loved the artwork inspired toys. Vermeer Miffy or Van Gogh Miffy? No – definitely Degas Miffy for the win.
I mean who knew there was this much Miffy stuff? I could have spent a tonne but luckily for my wallet (and for Him Indoors), I was on my way to the theatre and didn’t want to be taking bags in there and didn’t have any space in my suitcase either!
My willpower was sorely tempted by the Foyles tote though, but I’m banned from more tote bags, so I stayed strong!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
In the late 1970s my three sons were infants progressing from looking at mere pictures on pages of board books (with a running commentary of “Look at the boat”, “Where is the bicycle”, and so on), and Hilda Boswell’s beautiful book of illustrated nursery rhymes (with much singing and reciting and pointing at “Little Boy Blue” and the “cow” and the “corn”, and so on), to REAL BOOKS with REAL STORIES.
“Miffy” was one of the great bridges between look-and-point and listen-and-look-at-the-story. We did not have many “Miffy” titles, living in Australia, far from the sources of “Miffy”. Nor did we have a big budget so we relied on fluking cheap copies at church sales and school fetes and charity/thrift shops. As well as “Miffy” we had some classic simple American “Little Golden Books”, and a copy of “Ant and Bee” (a remarkable and very silly alphabet book).
The beauty of Miffy, as the character, was that she was a child in a family doing everyday things our children knew.
Many years later, during a trip to the Netherlands, we discovered that Miffy, born and bred in Holland, was not only still popular but was happily in print and enriched by merchandise.
Sadly, our grandsons were a bit too old to engage with Miffy, but our two young nieces enjoyed the Miffy books, and T-shirts and slippers we bought for them.
The other big story about “Miffy” is that “Hello Kitty” (so obviously a rip-off) settled a pending court case for plagiarism. Miffy is much better, needless to say, and the original.
Dick Bruna, the author artist of “Miffy”, was a pioneer in the design of children’s picture-story books, and a great writer whose few words meant so much to the infants hearing them, and the adults reading the books.