Yesterday, my little 4 year old son returned from nursery clutching the remains of a Kinder egg. It had been kindly given to him by one of the assistants as an end of term gift and, while he waited for me to pick him up, he had devoured the chocolate. This left the little yellow plastic egg inside with its little toy hidden.
My children love to receive Kinder eggs. To be honest, I don’t mind the chocolate, but I find the gift inside pointless, so I never buy the eggs for them. (I know, mean Mummy!)
When we got home I helped him to open the egg. At this point the collective excitement of a Kinder egg in the house meant that it was whisked out of my sight with a blur of children. TF reappeared with his ring. A ring with a hidden stamp in it.
(Apologies for the photo quality and to anyone who understands Russian.)
I knew enough that it was Russian, along with the “RU” on the front of the ring. I put the ring to one side so that I could ask my father to translate, as he speaks the language. Easier than trying to type it into a translator using my English standard keyboard. I removed the ring subtly, until I knew.
Now on to the blogging part of the story. As anyone who blogs knows, sometimes comments are left on your blog which have nothing to do with what you have posted and are there just to entice people to follow a link or advertise. Sometimes they are tasteless, occasionally they are so bad that they are funny. Sometimes they are in badly translated English and other times in another language. Today a Russian one was waiting in my trash folder. Lo and be hold! It started with the very same word as featured on the ring. This could be good, or not. Like I said, some of these comments can be tasteless. So, I cut and paste it into Google Translator and voila. I could read it and play it. As anyone who speaks Russian knows (feel free to roll your eyes in despair at my ignorance), it says “Hi”.
That’s OK then.
Somebody pointed out that I should have expected something like that from a Kinder egg. Apart from displaying my lack of knowledge and pure cynicism, my point is that at last one of those trash comments have been useful. Silver lining on that one!
Just to say привет to all the Russian speakers out there who are probably not reading this post anyway. I love the sound of the Russian language. I played the sound of this word and practised it so many times that I think I could say it for real and not embarrass myself anymore. It has sparked an acorn of an idea of a fun project that I could do with the children this holiday. Now where’s my glitter glue……
(Oh, I did return the ring to TF.)
Postscript: Finally found the bit of paper that was in the egg with the ring. It shows all the rings in the series and translates. Even has a nice diagram showing how to use a webcam to scan the word in with a suggested website. When I showed the paper to the girls, they already knew. (sound of me pulling out my hair)…….
Ah, a glimpse into the mind of a cynical crafter… Carefully confiscate the toy for research. When all is approved, it’s a craft idea!
Great post Cheryl, and glad all turned out well in the end. I was a bit nervous about what you were going to find at first. You see, I too am a cynical crafter. I wonder if there is a support group for the likes of us?
Blessings, Debbie
There’s bound to be a support group somewhere that would fit the bill! 😀 Oh, you made me laugh. The phrase “cynical crafter” seems so apt. Before I knew the meaning, I was a bit concerned too. He was quite happy stamping it everywhere. Just found the paper from the egg. Turns out it would have been helpful!
This is brilliant!!!!! x
Hi Daisy. I’m not the only one then!