Sometimes you plan things for ages, and other times an idea just hits you from out of the blue. I was browsing through one of the girliest shops in the world in the town of Arundel in West Sussex, when I found this:
In case the picture is unclear, it is a phial of glitter which says ‘Fairy Dust’. Costing about 50p, it was irresistable to a mum with two small girls of 3 and 6. The possibilities! Bear with me on this one…
While growing up in the wild moors of Lancashire, believing it to be the back end of nowhere, (subsequently proved by the long journeys back from civilisation later in life), I couldn’t wait to leave and live in a big city. I was never sure which city, but I knew it was going to be a bigger and more interesting place than the rainy wilderness of home.
Of course, when I had my own children I was very excited to be bringing them up in London. WOW, I thought, how lucky are they to live in such an important and cosmopolitan place? The history, the culture, the museums, the markets, the endless life opportunities. A truly enthralling place?
So I was very surprised when my daughter announced that she thought Tottington, the Lancashire village I grew up in was the most amazing place in the world and that she was going to move there when she grew up. They do say life comes full circle! Curious to find out more, I asked her why Tottington was the best place in the world to live. She replied that it was because there was more magic there than there was in London.
I realised that when we had visited Granny there, the girls had got to make spells in the garden and, by magic, some gifts from the fairies appeared when they got up the following day. Now of course, spells had never worked at our house in London, and we had speculated that there weren’t any fairies in our garden. However, when I found the fairy dust, we wondered together if it might make our spells work? Obviously Granny must have her own magic which Mummy can’t do?
So we tried:
The girls had a pot each, and collected an assortment of grass, leaves and other ingredients from the garden. They mixed them up with a stick, and then we added the fairy dust to see if it brought any fairies overnight?
Well, the next morning we checked:
The fairies had been! Well, my 6 year old confided that she had started to think that fairies didn’t really exist, but this confirmed that they did. The rest of the fairy dust went a long way. We made magic wands using real magic glitter, we made the teddies move, and we even made facepaint out of it later that day.
All in all a magical midwinter day.
This has made me smile ever so secretly to myself and how clever were you to find that little phial of fairy dust. My ten yr old still believes and lets say the tooth fairy has never forgotten, the Easter bunny leaves them a treasure map every year and Santa uses the windows and leaves glittery footprints in his wake, ah! bless!
Magically given memories are the best 🙂
PS we all need a little magic in our lives.
yay, fairy magic. Your girls must have been so wide eyed, would have loved to have seen it.
I think there’s an old wives tale about Lancashire – visit once and you’ll always return. We were at Uni in Lancaster and it’s been true for us (only took 10 years! – just a visit though so far)
I’ve enjoyed reading the blog so much and was amazed to be mentioned. It was such great fun creating the “magic” in the garden- memories of when you were all little.
love mum x
Hi Mum
It was a great memory and the photo is in my Valentine’s photobook present to J.
moy
x
how do i make fairy dust
Hi melissa, the fairy dust is just glitter really in a little vial with a label saying fairy dust. It does the trick though. x
I believe in magik!!! Leave fairy dust wherever you glow 🙂 If ever I feel a wee sad, I always go outdoors and a face appears in a cloud, stone, leaf or flower and smiles right back at me before vanishing back into the magical realm that many don’t see as their imagination has gone to seed! Plant seeds of possible, nourish with love and light and reap what grows! Like minded imagineer! X