Inner Child - October

So I have failed to connect to my intended Inner Child this month and I hold all you Swallows and Amazons dissenters partly responsible for helping me to see the error of my ways.
In fact I didn't get very far at all, only as far as mother anticipating the need, buying the canvas and making the tents,

'the tents were of the simplest kind. Each tent had a three-cornered piece for the back. The back was sewn to the sides, and a piece of stout rope was stitched to the canvas inside to make the ridge of the roof...along the bottom edges of the back and sides there were big pockets, to be filled with stones...at the front of the tent there were loose flaps, joined to the sides, so that they could be rolled up and tied out of the way with two pairs of tapes that worked life the reef points in a sail.'

Yes well that all sounds very simple indeed and I can only begin to imagine the state of mother's poor fingers by the time she'd stitched that rope onto the inside, to say nothing of the pockets for the stones. Then to have young upstart John suggesting that really they shouldn't be taking tents at all but knocking something up out of the sails and oars, well, someone sort that ungrateful child out please.
By this time I knew I was not entering into the spirit of the read and mother's endeavours had me thinking like an indignant grown-up and one who was likely to get more crabby as things progressed.
I think I was also diverted into grown-up territory at the beginning of September with my trip to Cambridge, Margaret Atwood and The Year of the Flood so I didn't really immerse.
Eventually I cheated (because that's allowed...did I mention that?) and moved swiftly into latter-day Inner Child reading with The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner.

I was so ready for a young person's- eye view of the French revolution because my adult's-eye view is still not sufficiently honed to feel confident about it all yet. It's all taking time and I was in need of much more scene-setting making this brilliantly evocative novel of 1780's Paris just the ticket and the wonderful endpapers, maps of ancient Paris had me squinting at the street names and really getting into the spirit of the book.
It is the run up to the Revolution and Yann Margoza and his friends Tetu the dwarf and magician Topolain are wowing and mystifying the Parisian audiences with their stunning new stage act.
Think France's Got Talent and Piers, Simon and Amanda sitting there with the baying hordes behind them and on walks a man with a wooden doll.
Ant and Dec are in the wings chatting to Yann and Tetu, who can't understand a word they are saying and really want them to pipe down because they need to focus.

The audience is now performing a synchronised eye roll with additional sniggers.
'So what's your name...'
'Topolain, monsieur.'
'R-i-g-h-t...and what are you going to do for us.'

'Mais oui, Je ferai cette poupée marcher et parler et alors elle lira votre esprit, ensuite cela j'inviterai quelqu'un à mettre le feu à une balle à moi et je l'attraperai....'

'R-i-g-h-t.. so you  will make this doll walk and talk and then it will read someone's mind, after that you will invite someone to fire a bullet at you and you will catch it.' translates the multi-lingual and gifted Simon Cowell for the benefit of us all. Simon has no need of Babelfish as I do and resigns himself to another load of rubbish happening before his very eyes. He really had hoped for better in Paris of all places.
Much more eye-rolling in the audience.
Amanda looks a bit fixed-grin zut alors shocked, Piers a bit je ne sais pas non-plussed..
'Of you go then'
Indeed it all comes to pass, the doll walks and talk of its own volition, and then successfully reads Piers's mind.
Piers is embarrassed to find that everyone now knows he was actually thinking about that interview he's just done with Cliff Richard (did you see it, bless Cliff) and wondering whether perhaps he'll get a free loan of the Barbados estate with the infinity pool after being so nice to him. The Grim Reaper is tricked again as Topolain catches the bullet fired by Simon who by now really has had enough, the applause is deafening, it's two 'ouis' and a 'non' but enough to go through to the next round and the video is watched 54 million times on youtube etc. and Oprah beckons.
Riding on the crest of this success Topolain is easily seduced by a summons from the sinister Count Kalliovski to perform their gig at the chateau, and doing so against their better judgment, Tetu and Yann are rapidly consumed by events as their party piece trick goes horribly wrong against a backdrop of everything going horribly wrong for everyone in Paris too.

The Red Necklace has comfortably restored my faith in my Inner Child reading but also satisfied my Inner Adult too, and of course everything is edging slowly on a rumbling tumbril towards the guillotine, so what good fortune that I have the recent sequel, The Silver Blade to hand.
Even better I can completely erase all associations of that title with Saturday's spent ice skating badly at Streatham Silver Blades Ice Rink when I was eight and even more fortunate that I have another month of Inner Child reading starting today so that's me sorted.
How about you?