I would like her but I don't like that she talks. Can you buy silent ones?

I don't wanna ruin one that still talks.

You could just take the batteries out. Their heads come off and they have a battery compartment inside. It doesn't count as modifying, since they're designed to come apart so you can change the batteries.

I've also seen a lot of not working ones for sale. Sometimes they just need new batteries, but my English Chatterbox had a busted speaker as well (I think she got water in her at some point). Got her fixed though I like to hear them chatting away.

Considering how much stuff I buy online, I think I've been quite lucky. It usually arrives....but sometimes it takes a while!

Chief and Wigwam are rather legendary in our pony collection. I ordered them from the US (this was back in 2015), only to have them go missing at the Global Shipping Centre. I eventually just gave up on them. Six months later, a mysterious parcel arrived, puzzling me since I hadn't ordered anything from America recently. I opened it and out tumbled Chief and Wigwam, none the worse for their ordeal! We think they probably lived wild in the depths of the Global Shipping Centre for a few months . We had a whole story about it, in which Wigwam made a hole in the packaging to look out. He got carried away craning round to see what a shipping centre looked like and fell out :gasp: Chief went to grab him by his tail....but unfortunately Wigwam was a restoration project and had no tail to grab!! Quick-thinking Chief grabbed the invoice with our address on it and leapt after his friend! For months they lived in the depths of the Global Shipping Centre, surviving on crumbs dropped by snacking employees, making friends with other toys passing through, and generally having adventures. Eventually they tired of this life, and wrapped themselves up in the invoice and put themselves in the way of an employee. Soon they were on their way again! They now spend a lot of time telling stories to the other ponies about their adventures

More recently, I ordered some Kitty in my Pocket kittens, also from America. After a while I checked the tracking....and noticed they were in Tokyo . They stayed there for several days....sightseeing, obviously

Just before the pandemic really kicked off I ordered some doll clothes from Ukraine....a few weeks later Ukraine closed its borders . (Fair enough, stopping a pandemic is more important than doll clothes!) That parcel might well still be out there somewhere, but it never did make it to me . Luckily the seller was very understanding, and once the pandemic had abated a bit they sent the order again and it arrived quite quickly.

Back in 2017, I ordered a doll (a singing Pocahontas, if you wondered). Tracking showed that she had reached a sorting depot in a city near us. Then it said she was out for delivery and would arrive that day. Yippee! The day passed....no Pocahontas. Tracking said she had returned to the depot. The next day, 'your parcel is out for delivery and will be with you today!....your parcel has returned to the depot' . On it went for about a week. It seems our address was last on the delivery man's route, and he never quite got there before the end of the working day. Pocahontas could probably have continued her travels along the same stretch of road indefinitely, but we put in some phone calls (I forget all the details, it was a while ago) and went and fetched her from the depot ourselves. She got here in the end .

One parcel that I never did get was a pony (Sundance). The courier swore he had left her at our address, and even had a signature to show for it (it was our name, but not the signature of anyone in our family; I think sometimes the postpeople sign for stuff themselves to save time). She never did turn up, so who knows where/if she was actually delivered . Maybe she's out there living a free and unfettered life as a feral pony .

Dear old Cotton Candy. Simple but classic.
Here's mine:
https://www.instagram.com/p/COm2Um_A7e9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Taffeta, I feel you on the disability benefits. We're still traumatised from trying to get my gf's benefits sorted a couple of years ago (she's autistic too). They left her without money for a year!! Good thing she has a supportive family. We actually eventually gave up on PIP (the stress was making us both ill), but we found she was eligible for Universal Credit. I don't know if that's worth looking into in your case?

My trivial complaint: our local vet practice is closed for refurbishment, so the vets have moved to a different practice outside of town. Both our cats hate travelling (Garfield gets car-sick, poor lad). "Isn't he lucky neither of them has an appointment booked?" we said to each other, "The local vets will be open again by the time they need their checkups." Famous last words . We have been practically living at the vet these past few weeks. Flash fell out of a tree(!) and hurt his leg. Garfield's asthma flared up. We had to go back again to get a new inhaler for Garfield. I'm starting to think I might just grab the cats and camp in the vets car park .

One of my girlfriend's childhood ponies. She reminds me of Elizabeth Arnold's Freya trilogy, a series of books I adored as a child (they were about Freya Boswell, a Romani witch/healer living in the New Forest).

Our pony is called Rodi, it's a traditional English Romani name used since at least the nineteenth century.

(An interesting article about Victorian Romani names, for anyone who is curious: https://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2014/05/victorian-romany-names.html)

Back when I had a thread about Ponies in Europe, I think there was some discussion as to whether Gypsy was sold in Hungary, but I don't remember the details.

Lickety-Split - Jazz Worms

Jazz music is a surprisingly good source of pony names. I'm now imagining a pony jazz band. Playing sax, trumpet etc might be tricky with hooves, though....

My gf and I once made a list of theme tunes for our ponies (basically songs that reminded us of them) but I'm not sure where it is now. Here's a few songs with pony names that I remember:

* Tutti Frutti - Little Richard
* Dazzle - Siouxsie & the Banshees (for Dazzleglow, or any of the other ponies with dazzle in their names)
* Bright Eyes - Art Garfunkel (Bright Eyes always makes me think of Total Eclipse of the Heart: "Turn around, Bright Eyes....")
* Barnacle Bill the Sailor - Bix Beiderbecke
* Honeysuckle Rose - Marlene Dietrich (for the flutter pony Honeysuckle?)
* Sundance - Ephixa
* Sunburst - Nightcore
* Ice Crystal - VRCTIC
* Gypsy Story - Transsylvania Phoenix (for Gypsy of course)
* Twilight - Adeline
* Twilight - ELO
* Mimic - Kana-Boon
* Sail Away - David Gray

ETA: Ponybookworm beat me to it with Bright Eyes and Twilight!

Oh yay now I can gaze at Nirvana ponies again
It must have taken so much work!