The weather has been gorgeous over the last few days so Hollie's had her Fifi paddling pool out quite a bit, this set was purchased at the end of last summer when it had been reduced to £5 which I thought was great value for a three-piece set. The design of ours is slightly different but it's definitely the Halsall brand so presumably they've changed it a little over the years it has been available.

The main difference is that the bottom of the paddling pool features Fifi's face instead of the logo you can see above, which is better I think although you'd have to watch very young children carefully to ensure they don't try to submerge themselves under water in an attempt to get closer to their favourite character. This is a moot point for me as I watch my children like hawks whenever they are near water, I have a fear of water myself and the annual stories of babies and toddlers drowning in miniscule amounts of water should be a warning to all of us.

The pool doesn't come with a inflator, so unless you've already got a pump it's lung-power I'm afraid! Luckily this is one of those paddling pools which only inflate at the sides, thank god Mark has a fits-all pump so it wasn't a problem but in all honestly I don't think it would take too much blowing to get it up. As the actress said to the bishop.

Once inflated the sides of the pool rise up to be around nine inches high, this is fine to stop toddlers and small children from sliding completely out of the slide but not too high that they cannot get in and out on their own. The bottom is very thin so make sure you put it on a soft area in the garden, I don't think it would actually puncture if you placed it on a harder surface but it definitely wouldn't be very comfortable for your playing children. The air stays in the paddling pool well, we blew this one up on Friday and now (Monday afternoon) it hasn't gone down at all and the only effect of not adding more air is that the sides have gone a bit squishy.

The other two items which came with this set are a beach ball and floating ring. These are both inflatable and the same pump blew both pieces up, again they're not huge so they wouldn't take too long to blow up manually. The beach ball burst within a few hours of blowing it up so that was a bit of a disappointment for Hollie, luckily she has lots of other balls that she can safely use in the paddling pool so it wasn't too much of a problem for her. I had actually bought this simply for the paddling pool (as in it's reduced state it was cheaper than a pool on its own) so the extras were neither here nor there, it would have been nice if the ball had lasted a bit longer but I wasn't too put out when I saw it deflated and discarded on the lawn.

I'm not sure of the reasoning for adding a floating ring for such a small paddling pool; the hole is too large to help the very small children which would benefit from having this around their waist while splashing around, so I'm baffled as to why it's been included. I've actually found a use for it as it's the perfect size to lie Hollie's baby brother on so he too can have a splash-around, again never letting him go as it's not really a buoyancy aid and more of a play thing.

Overall I'm more than happy with the paddling pool; the pool itself is bound to get plenty of use over the BBQ summer that we've been promised and is also a nice size for filling with play balls for impromptu play. The fact that it's Fifi inspired has come a little late, as the sweet little flowertot is no longer in vogue for Hollie - but having said that, it's the fun this pool creates for us and not how it's designed.