Imagination

To you and I, a broken stump of a tree, an unimaginative picture, unbalanced and without real point of interest.

Actually, it's the home to the sneeze dragon. Can't you see it's balcony, the door to its bedrooms? Just off to the side, there is the secret chamber. It goes into it, and it can slide down from the top room. Of course.

I did enjoy the moment, after the detailed inventory, when a primary two pupil asked of the primary one, "That's where he goes in for his food, isn't it?" Only to be told, "No! That's just a hole in the wood."

It was the last day of forest school, and I was being given a guided tour of all the best places and well appointed 'favourite places'. Primary ones have gorgeous imaginations, the type that make you smile, that make you see what was obviously there, if you weren't as old as you are.

By the time they leave education, statistics suggest that we have managed successfully to remove that creativity, rendering them sensible, and fit for the real world. Now you know why I say that when I grow up, I want to be Peter Pan.