Wings

Highlights of the first week of the Easter Holidays:

I took my 84-year-old mother-in-law to an Alzheimer’s Society Cognitive Stimulation Group, where it turned out one of the other attendees knew her. 
“That’s nice,” I burbled to her on the way back. “You know, that the chap Steve knew you.” 
“Well, I do know him, but I can’t for the life of me remember where from.” 
“Oh well, that doesn’t matter.” 
“No. He’s an obnoxious sod, anyway.”
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I played ‘I Spy’ in the car with the kids on a shopping trip this morning. 
“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with t.p.” (I was thinking of telegraph pole).
My son wrinkled his eyes up with concentration. “I know! A titanium turbo pig!”
“What on earth is a titanium turbo pig?”
“They’re a pig, and they have slidey snot missiles and blast fire out of their butts that can melt through titanium.”
“Oh, of course. Of course they do.” 
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We watched the Disney film Maleficent, a reworking of the Sleeping Beauty tale, told from the point of view of the wicked fairy Maleficent.
It’s a knack, finding movies that both my 16-year-old daughter with special needs and my 6-year-old boy with special smart arsery can both watch and enjoy. But this seemed to fit the bill. Things were going well until about half way through when I got a two pronged attack from the sibling squad.
My girl suddenly recognised the whole ‘being pricked by a spinning wheel’ scenario as bearing similarities to the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. But she found it completely impossible to see how the tale was being told from the point of view of another character. 
“It’s not Sleeping Beauty, it can’t be, because it’s not the same. But she’s Sleeping Beauty! But she can’t be! Mum! It isn’t, is it? It is, isn’t it?”
Meanwhile, my boy was cogitating. He’d seen how Maleficent was betrayed by her childhood friend, who chopped off her wings in order to gain power and become king. He’d watched as the embittered fairy took revenge on the kings’ armies, controlled forest creatures with her magical staff and performed amazing feats of sorcery. 
“Huh.” He crossed his arms, suddenly unimpressed. “That’s stupid. I don’t see why she doesn’t just magic her wings back.”
I did a spot of quick thinking. “Ah, well, the one thing that magic can’t do is magic fairies’ wings back.”
Which was OK. Apart from the fact that 45 minutes later...her wings got magicked back.

“MUM!” “MUM!” I got the backlash from both of them in unison. “YOU SAID......!”
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Song is Geneva - Temporary Wings