This is a picture of the sky. It is very lovely. It bears very little relation to what I’m about to tell you but, I feel, it’s time to tell the truth. And so I start with a sweetener. The beauty. The glory. The light that stretches down to your fingertips. The joy of the infinite sunset.
And now the sadness.
It is time, my friends, to confess something to you. A sordid truth. My hidden shame.
Children’s Literature has ruined my life.
Every day, I’m shuffling suffering from at least one of the following:
- I expect every doctor I meet to be, dashingly handsome, good In a crisis and intensely marriageable.
- I would rather love a moat
- Ditto a tower
- Where is the dog who understands my every whim and is also my best friend?
- Also where is my tempestuous and hot pianist?
- Ditto my … other … tempestuous and hot pianist?
- Where is my midnight garden?
- Where is my secret garden?
- Where is my genetically modified dinosaur?
- And where is my mistmaker?
(You know what? I’m in love that I could carry on this list forever. God I love books. My life without them would not be the same. They have made me what and who I am.
And I would not have it any other way 🙂 )
Daisy May Johnson 
Where are my pop biscuits and toffee shocks? Where is my Faraway Tree and the trees that say Wisha Wisha? (Actually, the trees have always said that, ever since I read Enid Blyton.)
Oh my word, does the Faraway Tree have so much to answer for! 🙂