I have loved the character Miffy since I was very, very young. I remember treasuring my 'Miffy in Hospital' and 'Miffy at School' books as a little girl. The sweet and simple illustration of the character and her books offer children a visual to go along with a clear and simple story, with bold, bright colours that also capture the imagination.
Miffy is one of those characters that I have passed on from my childhood to my daughter and I feel it really says something that she stands up on her own two feet against some very exciting competition like princesses and Japanese cats.
Now that summer has hit, there's a whole shed load of new items in the Miffy shop and we we lucky enough to get the swim ring and beach ball to try out for the summer. Living a five minute walk from Eastbourne beach, we were very excited and I had originally planned to review the two items together, however, between the weather (whenever it's beach weather I have plans and whenever I don't, it's raining) and my pregnancy, we are yet to get the beach ball to the actual beach!so today I'm going to tell you about this lovely, colourful swim ring!
Coming in a choice of two colours (yellow or orange), it's a small-child-sized swim ring with an opaque bottom layer and a transparent top layer decorated with Miffy illustrations; three of the lady herself, a walrus, an octopus, a seal and a few bits of beach-themed things. The illustrations are keeping with the books, still with bold block colours and simple lines, which makes it easily identifiable as a Miffy product. The ring itself is the perfect size for under fives, not too big that you lose them in it, but not so small that it offers nothing. It was a great size to go around Moo's waist, though she is tiny and so kept slipping down. My niece was also a fan and enjoyed splashing in the pool with it.
A fight did break out between the two over who would get to play with it and it did take a good tugging here and there, but withstood well against a couple of grouchy toddlers. It inflated very quickly (even with my baby-squashed lungs) and deflated at speed also which is handy if you were to take it to the beach, making it easy to fold-away in your beach bag. The stopper wasn't one of those tiny diddly or stiff ones, it was easy to plug and unplug as well as blow in to, super handy when you've got little people in an excited and desperate scrambled around you.
The ring pictured is the yellow option (which is Moo's favourite colour), here are my pros and cons...
Pros.
- Easy and quick to inflate and deflate.
- Perfect size for pre-schoolers.
- Folds up neatly.
- Attractive to look at.
- Brightly coloured so good for public pools and the beach.
- Came with puncture repair patch.
Cons.
- The packaging wasn't in English.
All in all, I can't really fault this lovely toy/swimming accessory. Moo was very happy with it to play with and I was very happy, as a parent, to allow her to play with it.
The Miffy Swim Ring is available from the Official Miffy Shop for £5.99.