Best gift in the world?

Just spent the day trawling through the Christmas catalogues. And binning most of them. What we want and what we need are such different things! Take Four-legged-friend, for example - what he wants is to eat every hour of the day; what he needs is a nutritious meal twice a day. What Littlest wants - really wants - is a pink plastic gizmo that will keep her entertained for just as long as it takes her to realise there are several computers and laptops in the house far more sophisticated and clever than pink gizmo. What she needs is longer-term and more fulfilling, but I plan to give it to her slowly - metaphorically - and let her unwrap it as she grows.

"When you wish upon a star" ... lovely song (particularly the current rendition by male British artist - you'll have to look it up) and equally lovely sentiment, because what follows is ... "your dreams come true." Wishes and dreams - children make wishes blowing the candles out on a cake, blowing an eyelash off a finger, when they stir the Christmas pudding mix, and they dream about being princesses, or astronauts, or magicians. So my present is tied up with a ribbon of wishes and dreams.

As Littlest gets older, wishes and dreams will (hopefully) become focussed and more realistic and change into ambitions and it will be up to us and her teachers to help her achieve these. So the wrapping paper - coloured with all the riches of a good education and sparkling with the glitter of hope - is ambition.

And inside, is the best gift that a child can ever be given: to believe in themselves.

So to Littlest and my older children, I will endeavour to give a gift of self-belief, wrapped up with all the wishes, dreams, hope, ambition, integrity and love of their childhood.

But metaphorical presents cannot be unwrapped too quickly, and for Littlest, this year, the pink gizmo is not ruled out. Yet!

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Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...

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Heaven clearly can't wait. Ranting and screaming inside. Growing old and lecturing ... myself, mostly.

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Walking The Dog

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