We had a great time at Eurodisney. It really is a special place for both children and adults. For me, I never realised how much of a traditionalist I was until I remembered I enjoy far more the traditional Mickey character, such as in Steamboat Willie, along with his friends from those early cartoons. Tradition and me are not usually two things I consider together. There is, however, still a special place for the traditional Mickey Mouse in my life!

I noticed an interesting thing while at Disney this time. My children had a big thing about collecting the autographs of the characters. At times throughout the day, children can queue or ‘bundle’ with others to collect the autographs of characters that are wandering around in Main Street. My children entered into this enthusiastically.

It’s one of those weird occasions when our children got very excited and ran to collect autographs, sometimes waiting ages for characters such as Baloo, or Donald, or Mary Poppins despite knowing that these characters were only people dressed in costumes!

On the way home one evening I was chatting with Joe who said something like ‘Dad, that must be the best job in the world …. working here and dressing up as a Disney character’.

It struck me that adults get all hung up about children not being able to distinguish between reality and fantasy. There is concern over Harry Potter novels, the Narnia Chronicles and other great pieces because, it is said, children cannot see where reality ends and fantasy starts. It confuses them, puts them at risk and blurs their image of the world.

I have always thought that that view is flawed. As a child I remember enjoying fantasy but realising it was fantasy. I remember walking into a wardrobe and hoping, but knowing that it was just a wardrobe and I would not get very far!

Certainly these last few days have shown that my youngest child can see the difference too. Rather than a fear over this, it’s great to see the beauty. The beauty of seeing children readily enter into this fantasy land of make believe while being able to maintain a grip on reality for themselves. It shows a great ability to dream, to imagine, to create and maybe even to hope.

That’s such a great ability of children – to hope, dream and see things for what they are. Quite often when I have been dealing with a tricky issue, it has been the comment of one of my children or some other young person that has caused the spark of a thought process that has eventually arrived at a good solution. Maybe dreaming in this child-like way could be a method of changing reality.

I wonder if, as adults, if we entered into this world more, the divinely ordained creative power of our minds would see achievable and realistic solutions to the issues of our world. Maybe we should all dream and hope that little bit more.