Imaginary consolation

I came across this quote a few days ago and it has been a source of great joy to me:

"Consolation from imaginary things is not an imaginary consolation." Roger Scruton.

That quote made me feel like listening to this music (click on "Russian Rag"), and looking at this photograph.

This music and this photograph then made me feel like writing a little bit more about that messenger bird which Princess Elzebeta sent to the queen, in search of our long-lost knight.

That message bird flew all the way to the Himalayan mountains, and as she hovered there, in mid-air, between cloud and cliff, air and leaf, she transformed herself (even SHE did not understand exactly how) into a white dove.

Our newly-doved message bird softly landed on the topmost tip of a red triangular roof, and she looked down from her perch and saw a steep, pebbled path winding up the mountain towards her, and along this path, hopping and skipping from stone to stone, moved two tiny creatures.

Each of the creatures had two legs and two arms which they swung to one side, and then again to the other side, a movement which propelled them all the way up to the base of the small, red-roofed, bright-flagged house.

Just as the dove looked down at them, so did they both lift their brightly shining faces towards the piercing blueness and the sharp redness and looked at our tiny feathered friend.

"It's a dove, a dove...It must be a dove house!!" The children ran around and around the house with glee, and the dove perched there silently and watched and watched as the house slowly began to shimmer and shine and then fade the roof-red away, until, in its place, was painted the clearest, cleanest white, as white as the very feathers of...well....of....of a dove!

And from that day onwards, visitors from far and wide would travel over oceans and deserts, deepest forests and grandest of cities, all with the sole aim of visiting the children's little white birdhouse.

But our messenger bird's adventures did not stop there.

No, they certainly did not, for there was still the pressing issue of an errant knight, a failing marionette theatre and a little girl called Ellie, who were all still waiting very very very far away......