iRelle

So today, in the playground at a local school I had a bit of a fairytale – with the hero played by the cutest little five year old you’ve ever seen!

I don’t even know his name, but when I ‘fell’ into the writhing rope net and called out that I was stuck he appeared – as if by storybook magic – and gallantly extended his yellow-cricket-bat-sword towards me, crying out with an adorable lisp,

“I’ll save you! Hang on to my sword!”

So I hung on, and he clambered down into my prison-pit and pulled me to safety! He was so very proud of saving me, and dragged his toe through the dirt as he mumbled something.

“Can I what?” I had to ask him to repeat himself. Like all great heroes, he was more at home with actions than words.

“Can we live together? Just pretend, though”… the sweetest proposal ever!

I replied with “Of course, you saved me, after all!” and he grinned and handed over his sword and shield so that I could have a turn. Mind you, with typical fair-maiden ineptness I didn’t realise there was a foe at his side until it was too late!

“I saved myself! Did you see?”

I didn’t see, but I pretended I did and then handed his weapons back… far be it from me to put a knight at a disadvantage when there were foes about – even if he was too gentlemanly to ask for them back.

But alas! It wasn’t meant to be, because he told me in no uncertain terms that,

“We have to split up. You stay over there now, okay?”

So feeling slightly rejected, I went back to my work… over there. I was playing on the slide with someone else when out of nowhere two little screaming girls arrived brandishing hoops and trying to trap me. They succeeded very well (which bodes no good for the little boys in a few years time) and I was just collapsing in a pile of girls, hoops and woodchips when…! With no dashing soundtrack but that lisping voice, I was saved yet again!

“I’ll set you free! You need saving a lot!”

He hacked the foul bonds of the hoops from around my waist and threw his arms around me with a heart-melting smile.

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That, my dear fellows, is what is colloquially known as ‘doing it right’. I hope you were taking notes… and your kids better be just as gallant and knightly as this young Galahad was!