Here is Harry Potter, standing proudly as King atop his rock castle, surveying the troops who know not that they support him, the wooden horses suddenly animated, the peasants on the farm cart dressed in their sunday finery for a playday while mum sits sipping her café latte. Yummy mummies on display – themselves, the finery, their children well behaved and kept in check, the golden labrador or common mutt also dressed up in pink doggie-bow collar and designer leads. Spring sun warming their backs as it does mine, yet we must not linger too long for the breeze is cool and whips carelessly round this corner where I sit surveying the scene. It is quiet now, Harry, Princess Leia, Bob the builder, mediaeval knights and serfs suddenly and temporarily drawn to the bosom of their families, drawn by the magical force that is nothing less than deep-fried potato chips. What child can resist?
Where does our imagination go? Does it flee with the years to some distant repository from whence newborns make their withdrawal? Do the rules that creep up on us over the years drown it in their sameness? Tigger still lives in all of us – when to restrain and when to open up to the joyous intent-less playfulness? He needs to be let out, for a bored sleep through inattention slowly kills him and the grumpy old man resurfaces full of his ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ instead of the open spaces of ‘could’ and ‘let’s try’. What have we to lose?
Let Tigger out today!