Mary Poppins has a new time slot it seems.

I caught the last part of the old movie with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke on CBC tonight. As the chimney sweeps tap-danced their way across the chimneypots of London, I happened to glance at the clock and realized it was nearly ten at night.

What children were up watching old Uncle Albert have a tea-party on the ceiling? Who was enjoying humming "Tuppence a Bag"? Not many children probably.

"Would they even sit through it?", wondered Jeff, watching the protracted musical numbers. Hmmm, not many children I know now. But I LOVED musicals as a kid. I am probably the target audience, sigh.

On the subject of children's movies, I was lent the new version of "Peter Pan". I thought Peter was smart to run away from Wendy at first. She was obsessed with kissing him. No small wonder Tink was annoyed. But I did like the movie overall. Great pirates and the most wonderful sinister mermaids. I wish they had played a bigger part.I think my favourite part of the whole movie was when Wendy reached out to touch a mermaid's webbed claw and then thought better of it.

"AREN'T mermaids sweet?", asked Wendy as she saw them silhouetted eerily in the water.
"They'd like to sweetly drown you if you aren't careful", Peter replies.

I've always thought mermaids should be a little bit dark and otherworldly.

I once had a dream of a mountain pool that I know of, up in the hills behind Cumberland. The water there is always dark and icy cold, even in summer. I dreamed that water spirits lived there and would only live as long as their pool was protected, so they were fierce about defending it. In the dream, I threw rings and bracelets into the water as gifts. They pulled themselves out of the water a little bit and I saw they were like mermaids, only with slick scaled heads and webbed fingers instead of flowing hair and delicate skin. They just looked at me with strange eyes.

After this dream, my friend Tai and I walked up to our mountain pool and threw little gifts in. I think Tai threw in a ring and I remember being very impressed. I was about thirteen.

And yes, OF COURSE I believe in fairies!