If you have children, look after children or know any pre-school children then you'll have heard of the popular kids TV programme 'In The Night Garden', shown on CBeebies in the UK - and growing in popularity in other countries, too.

I remember years ago hearing someone talk about 'Makka Pakka' and wondered what the heck they were on about - was this some new cult or religion? Perhaps a new fad diet? No. Makka Pakka is the slightly OCD pal of Iggle Piggle, the main character and focus in the Night Garden TV show. Iggle Piggle is presumably male, owns a red comfort blanket, has a mad red mohwak on top of of his oval noggin and is rather cuddly looking. He also lives in a boat and shares his 'dreams' in the Night Garden - or that's my interpretation of what this show is all about.

There are various different characters in the show, but Iggle Piggle is the main character. And he is also the first character my son could pronounce the name of and consequently there followed a few vests and PJs with Iggle Piggle brandished on them for his enjoyment. My son does call him 'Giggle Piggle', though.

It was only natural that we buy this toy for part of his Christmas and we wanted a talking 'Giggle Piggle' as he loves all the noises and sounds Iggle Piggle makes. Well, it wasn't hard to find. For about £20 or so in Tesco we could take this toy home with us.

Well, as these things go, great minds think alike and the grandparents - aka my in-laws - had actually already bought Iggle Piggle for part of my son's Christmas. When he was opened up at Christmas there was a DVD included - great! 5 episodes of 'In the Night Garden' on DVD, which will come in handy when we're on 6 hour trips up north.

Iggle Piggle was encased in cardboard and held down by those wirey things they put in the boxes to tie down toys - you know what I mean!. Getting him out of the box wasn't a mission, pretty easy to break him loose and he wasn't caught up in loads of those...thingiemajigs. Of course the Night Garden brand and Ninky Nonk logo were splashed everywhere on the box - what do you expect?

Iggle Piggle is a good size - would probably reach my son's knee (my son is nearly 2 at the time of writing this), maybe a little bigger. This toy is suitable for kids 18 months + - which basically means don't give the toy to a child whose younger. No problem for us!

The toy (Iggle Piggle) has a nice squishy, cosy almost fleecy body, matching the colours of Iggle Piggle on the show - red mohwak included, which is the same material. The toy itself is a wipe clean/surface clean only toy and I can't see anyway you can take the outer fleecy layer off. It comes with 2 AA batteries, so no need to run out to the shops!

To operate: press the toy's tummy and listen to the various Iggle Piggle noises, included in this is the Iggle Piggle theme song, with the famous 'Yes, my name is Iggle Piggle', line.

Another lovely added extra for this toy is Iggle Piggle's red blanket - it's a small fleece blanket that is attached by Velcro, so any child over the age of 18 months could easily detach the blanket. Which has been both a blessing and a curse; sometimes we've been on a hunt looking for the blanket (just like on the TV show!) and it's now kept in a very 'safe place' ;).

All in all I'd recommend this toy if you're thinking about buying it for your little one - the songs and sayings you get out of the toy are of decent sound quality (not the best, but not the worst) and the toy itself is very well made and it uses very little battery life. 5/5 from me!