A Modern Mary Poppins

I was suffering a bit from the January Blues earlier this week: the combination of snuffles, cold feet and frizzy hair do not make a happy me. But then an email from Nancy and Betty popped into my inbox and their new treats cheered me up no end. Their Practically Perfect in Every Way tape (£5.95), aside from looking perfectly pretty, inspired me to dig out a copy of Mary Poppins. Every day could do with some of that Mary magic.

The perfect accompaniment to this tape? You could invest in this tea towel we featured a little while back, or go for one of these Mary inspired items:

Mary Poppins wouldn't be anything, or indeed get anywhere, without her brolly. I can't help thinking her parrot handle needs a little update though. How about this British Birds Umbrella? It's £30 from Cath Kidston and it opens at the touch of a button. Now that's magic.

What would Mary do in a dull January? I imagine the desire to Feed the Birds would be somewhere on the list. Pledge your allegiance to her cause with this Cheeky Pigeon badge. It's £4 from Hannah Zakari.

Mary would also surely exclaim, "Let's Go Fly a Kite". If that's not possible due to pesky things like, you know, work, remind yourself to have fun with this Kite necklace by NW3 at Hobbs. However, this particular kite isn't soaring as it's reduced to £22 in their sale.

And when you have to deal with all the boring stuff, try and balance it up. with the sweet stuff. Remember that A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down. Louise Buchan's leather penny pouch is pretty sweet in itself with its rope handle but also benefits from an extra cute spoon screen-printed design. It's £45. I'm not quite sure if you could fit a hatstand in there but then that's a task for the real supercalifragilisticexpialidocious pros...