School Sports day in Rooibosch Hill

Since SSK has recently marked down the school sports day set (4416), I decided to jump at the opportunity and buy one for myself. I don't have any sports accessories yet and after all, it includes a Norwood mouse right? Who can resist!?

The lovely stock photo from SSK's shop website. See Katy Norwood there?

Aww, Katy Norwood is falling behind in the sack race!

And isn't Katy Norwood just too cute with that whistle (Note how big this soccer ball is...)

And finally we have the photo showing the included accessories, Barry Periwinkle (Let's call him a cousin) and little Katy Norwood.

Have I mentioned that little thing that I have with luck? Yes, this set does include a Norwood mouse... if you are lucky! However, Mr. Murphy never seems to smile on me and I usually do not have any other luck than the bad kind.

So, when my parcel arrived, I was very excited to add Katy Norwood to my village! Finally the Norwood mice would have a child of their own, Yaay! :D And, of course another Periwinkle  boy, because every Sylvanian village has to be overrun with Periwinkle rabbits... Bells were ringing and angel choirs singing in my mind as I opened my box to find:

Oh no, wait... Isn't that a Maces mouse?

Yes, it's true. I did not receive Katy Norwood in my box. Instead, I found a Maces mouse. I immediately contacted SSK to let them know about my surprise. I wanted to cry, the angel choirs were replaced by evil laughter, the bells and sparkles gone and disappointment set in.

I was much too disappointed to open the box, even after I received an answer from SSK that this is a known problem and somewhere on the packaging line a problem must have crept in, which has since been corrected. They did also promise to send off a real Norwood mouse figure for me for alerting them of the problem and I felt my disappointment lift slightly. None the less, this box has been floating about my study for a few days now and tonight I finally decided to open it.

Barry Periwinkle and Katy Maces decided to play baseball first, but Katy had some trouble pitching the ball.

So the two switched over to hockey instead. This went better, but Barry felt that playing hockey wasn't quite for him.

So he suggested that they try a sack race. However, Barry came second to Katy Maces and soon suggested they try something else.

So, Katy Maces drew a fictional goal line and Barry tried to get the tiniest soccer ball in Sylvania past her. This didn't last long either, since the little soccer ball was deflated to begin with! (The stock image's ball looks MUCH better!)

Lastly the two tried the egg and spoon race... Unfortunately Barry lost his balance just before the finish line and fell flat on his face, getting egg all over  himself while Katy Maces gained the lead.

At the end of the day, Katy Maces won the trophy and Barry Periwinkle went home with bumps and scrapes to remind him of the day that he was beaten by a girl! 

I don't totally dislike this set, but with the Maces mouse drama, I lost a lot of the zing that it had previously. 

Overall this is a good set though and you get lots of tiny pieces. The whistle is very cute and I really can't complain about much. Except the little deflated soccer balls... At least I think they are soccer balls though! :P

For some reason I couldn't figure the egg and spoon race out at first... It took hubby's laughter at my puzzlement over the inclusion of two spoons in a sport day set to finally realize that I was missing something. Of course he couldn't help but gloat at figuring out that the little white oblong balls were in fact eggs long before I did and we had quite a laugh at my attempts at figuring out what kind of balls they were...