AtoZ Challenge: W...

...is for Wish.

Wishes and wishing are bound up in folklore and fairy tales, with wishes often key parts of the story's plot (as in Aladdin, for example).

There are also many possibly pagan traditions associated with wishing - making a wish when you throw a coin in a fountain, making a wish as you throw salt over your left shoulder (an act that knocks off any evil spirits that may be sitting there), making a wish if you see a shooting star, making a wish when you blow out the candles on a cake, and probably many more.

Expressions abound, too: make a wish, make a wish come true, be careful what you wish for...

It's hard to know what I would really wish for if a genie in a lamp were to grant me three wishes. I'd have to think so very carefully... "be careful what you wish for" and all that jazz.

I think, though, that I'd wish for the girls to have happy, healthy lives, I'd wish for a happy, healthy life for myself and I'd wish for Tom to be brought back to life.

I'm hoping the first wish will kind of happen of its own accord (though given Carla's surliness and Lydie's syllogomania things don't seem to be off to a great start). I'm not hopeful about the second, because as I said, I remain a glass-half-empty kind of person by nature. And, without the genie in the lamp, I know the third is currently impossible.

But a girl can wish, right?