No strings

My lovely friend Paul pulled some strings to get us tickets to see Disney on Ice at the O2 recently. Little a was transported. The princesses, of course, were a big hit - no surprises there - but the lasting favourite has been Pinocchio.

The scene didn't stand out particularly at the time, aside from the scary whale. (We're going through a bit of fear-discovery I think. She was scared by the supposedly comic opening scene with Goofy and the Zamboni - leaping into my lap, wailing and clutching at me as though Godzilla himself was stalking the blue plastic seats). Since then, though, we've been subjected to 'I've got no strings on me' played on repeat interminably.

It's maybe a price worth paying. I've been inspired to dig out the original tale and put straight my sketchy recollections of fairies, foxes and donkeys. Little a seems captivated by the idea of a boy brought to life by love. It brings out in her the same reaction as a game we used to play with a big cardboard box: a special delivery arriving on my doorstep of my very own 'real girl'. Of course Pinocchio must have been there all along in my subconscious. And it seems to me a good first introduction to the birds and the bees. Not the act of creation itself, but the feelings you hope will accompany it.

Hmmm, that's deeper than I meant to go when I started to write about this jolly song that's going to be annoyingly lodged in my head all week. But it's true. And a lesson I'm a lot more comfortable with than the 'find-a-prince-and-kill-your-stepmother' messages of most of our storytelling inheritance ...