Without Children...

Last weekend I found myself, on a couple of separate occasions, in the odd position of being without a child, when circumstances demanded otherwise. I hadn’t been careless or negligent, just things had conspired against me. On Saturday I was travelling down to Bristol on the train, having purchased my usual 2 tickets with our family railcard. I was however on my own, Joe, my son, having decided, at the last minute, to travel down earlier in the week. I spent a restless few minutes deciding how much of this story it would be appropriate to tell the ticket inspector, it all seemed an unnecessarily complicated but I wondered if I could get away with suggesting he was away at the buffet car. As it turned out no inspector appeared, so my dilemma was never tested.


The previous day, I was at Bluewater shopping centre, at 10am with a few hours to kill, before I was required to provide lifts home. A film seemed the only reasonable option, but there was only one screen open. So I found myself queuing, trying not to look conspicuous, amidst dozens of impatient children, for the first showing of the morning of ‘Up’.

As the film began though I found myself wondering what the children were making of it. This was an old man’s story. More than that, in the opening 20 minutes, as the life of Carl Frederickson unfolded before our eyes, we had brief animated scenes in a special baby unit and a crematorium as he lost first his child then his wife. Hardly the traditional stuff of Disney/Pixar.

Beyond that though a beautiful story was told of hopes and dreams, how it’s never too late to realise them, but all to easy to miss them as they are fulfilled around us. My friends at Damaris have done a good job at reflecting upon it. I’m glad I got to go, and I didn’t even have to share my popcorn!