Dear Reader:

When I look at this “fairy” door that I recently ordered….I see a whole house (in my make-believe mind) inside the tree…a kitchen, living room, bedrooms, etc. The entire family of fairies are living a parallel life to ours…just smaller… and with wings.

I was meant to get this door…because something strange has already happened….it started with an interesting problem arising in England in some of their famous forests that a friend (through a magazine article) sent  me a couple of weeks ago. The article had photos of lots of fairy doors that really caught my imagination.

This is the summer that Eva Cate and I will create some fairy homes and furniture in the garden…so I thought it would be fun to start with a door by the pine tree in the center of the garden.

I ordered it through amazon.com (my “portable” home away from home) but it actually came from Plow and Hearth. Amazon sent me their usual notice that my order had been received and an approximate time for its arrival.

Then a couple of days ago…when amazon.com popped up on my email page I assumed it was saying it had been shipped…but to my disappointment…it was saying that the item I ordered was quite popular (there must be a lot of us fairy fans out there) and it was, also, alas… out of stock…They weren’t sure when it would be back in…so they were cancelling the order.

Later that same day I discovered a FedEx box on my porch and ‘lo and behold‘…there was the fairy door I ordered with this (quite interesting) receipt. ???? (As grandmother told me, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?“)

I think this is a “fairy” good sign that we are supposed to start building a fairy garden…don’t you?

It was my friend, Pat Seavy, who sent me the article on an interesting dilemma developing in some famous English forests…a concern with “over-housing” problems for “the little people with wings.”

Definitely a different dilemma for sure….Take a minute and look at the article and pictures of some sample doors in the Somerset Woods….it must be a fairy reunion of sorts….

Fairy control’ to halt tiny doors in Somerset woods – BBC News

* It amazes me that this article is serious…the “fairy patrol” is quite earnest in their endeavor to clean up the woods and forests from those encroaches trying to create “imagination and make-believe about fairies for their children and grandchildren.

Apparently these “Puritan protesters”  don’t remember the famous story of Albert Einstein…(1950’s) when asked by anxious reporters how America could catch up with the Russians in the Space Race (following Sputnik) Einstein calmly replied: Read them fairy tales.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

(Thanks Sis for the reminder!)

*I think Eva Cate and I can control the fairy population in our garden….but then who knows who the fairies might invite to move in….some gnomes might even arrive….to make life even more interesting!

I was thinking the other day that if I had not had my imaginary world to escape to…as a child…the reality of too much tragedy too close together…might have caused some life long problems with depression and other mental/emotional illnesses. (Thank you God for your gift of imagination You gave us!)

But instead…my imaginary friends and I only lived in happy “Neverlands” where imagination always won out over reality. I was definitely the “pin-up” child for this quote:

Trapped by reality, freed by imagination. ~Nicolas Manetta

I want all my grandchildren to understand the importance of imagination in their lives and never lose it to age or circumstance. Remember my children…for your children: “Never be too busy to make time for make-believe!!!”-Mom

So until tomorrow: Remind us Father that “There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds” ~G.K. Chesterton and
Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life. ~Simone Weil

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* If any of you out there have friends who are “whimsical”  bird lovers-(Hint: It would also make a creative gift for mom bird lovers too)…then have I got a gift you can give. I found it in Marigolds awhile back….

 Obviously a bag of birdseed is inside the cute bag with the legend for good luck…the little card that is attached says:

 * Warning:  Just don’t let mom open the door and step out on to the bird-seeded front porch or front step without warning…or she might just learn how to fly like a bird!