Waving magic wands

My little granddaughter wanted a magic wand. A real one. I understood her desire perfectly. I'll just refresh your memory because I'm sure I mentioned it in an earlier post, about when I was 8 years old and my mum bought me a magic wand in London. It had a switch to light up the star on the top and I spent the whole train ride home thinking about the magic I would do with it. I thought carefully about my wishes. The first one was always about my terrible eye sight ,  I wished so much that I wouldn't need to wear glasses anymore.That wish sort of came true with the marvellous invention of contact lenses. The next one was that my mum and dad and brother would always love me and the third was that I would find Love's true kiss. I would have wished that there was no evil in the world, cures for all ills and world peace, but at eight years old my dad was my hero and I thought that he and Doctor Shand, our family doctor, were taking care of all that.

Well of course I went to the toyshop and asked the man there if he had a real magic wand. He did. A sailor moon one that needed batteries. When the wand was all set up and switched on it made a rather irritating noise. I hoped my son and daughter-in-law hadn't noticed. My grand- daughter was soon interpreting these funny noises in all sorts of  enchanting and imaginative ways. A squirrel was asking what had happened to his winter store of nuts, a fairy wanted to know why her wings wouldn't work. We then watched 'Frozen' together. It is a Disney film based on the story of The Snow Queen. That was one of the fairy stories that most frightened me as a child. A piece of ice goes in a little boy called Kay's heart and he loses his capacity to love. My granddaughter guided me through the film, with a most charming and delightful commentary.She knew who was good, who was bad, and at the end she knew all about Love's true kiss. I felt like I' d come home listening to her, full circle, Love's true kiss, unconditional love, loyalty, and a lot of fun and cuddles on the way .