Sixteen days off, starting Saturday 26 September. If your holidays run like ours, you'll have burned through the free options by about Wednesday of week one.

So here's a suggestion. Walk down Beaufort Street and come in.

The shop rewards a slow browse

People wander in for a birthday card and leave forty minutes later, which we choose to take as a compliment. Kids generally make straight for the plush, and there's a wall of it. Jellycat, Bear & Me, Paddington. Behind that sit the things everyone's actually chasing: Sonny Angel, Smiski, and the mystery squishy dumplings that were gone inside a day last time we had them. Pokemon cards too, and Nee Doh, which we now get phone calls about most weeks. If yours would rather make something than cuddle it, the Connetix and The Little Potion Co kits are on the shelf near the back.

Nothing here is mass ordered. We buy small, and we only stock things we'd happily hand over as a gift ourselves. The flip side is that the good stuff disappears. Sonny Angel series rotate constantly and Jellycat retires designs with no warning at all, so if something's been sitting on your list since July, now beats December.

Get a coffee on the way in

Lady Annie are our neighbours, and they make a very good coffee. Weekdays from 6:15am, weekends from 7am, closing at 2pm either way, which makes this a morning outing rather than an afternoon one. We've got a back courtyard if you want somewhere quiet to drink it.

Or bring it round to our alfresco out the front instead. Sit down, let the kids pick through whatever they've collected, and watch Beaufort Street go past. Dogs, prams, someone's extremely unhurried cyclist. Costs nothing and kills half an hour.

Worth knowing

We're a family business. We bought the shop in November 2021 and named it after our daughters, Charlotte Olivia and Amelie Grace, who you'll still find wandering the floor when they're not at school. Thirteen locals work here. What you spend with us stays in WA rather than heading east.

672 Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley. We're open 7:30am to 5pm Monday to Friday, 7am to 5pm Saturday, and 8am to 1pm Sunday.

Can't get in? The full range is at oliviaandgrace.com.au, free shipping over $149.