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After a day's play with a helium balloon and a tiny box kite...my little girl and I decided to give our playmates their freedom and release them back to the skies.

On the count of 7 her hand had agreed to let go of the beloved balloon ...we then gave it a 7 seconds start on the kite...I got out my tiny penknife and...cut it free...it raced after its darling and the last thing we saw was that they were heading for an horizon known as France. We wished them well in their new life together.

After all...in a little girl's mind...balloons and kites...are peoples too. First there is the playing with the objects...then there is...the playing with thoughts. She never forgot this.

She in her littleness had respected the balloon and kite as "peoples"( had we not named them?) and so Fred and Ginger lived on longer in the imagination than they could have in actual reality. I used to tell her stories of a beautiful balloon and and kind kite having a drink in a bistro in Paris trying to pick up the lingo. Faire voler un...tiny bit of imagination...et maintenant le cerf-volant et le ballon live happily forever after in her mind.

A month later I bought exactly the same kite and balloon and told her they had come back as they just couldn't get to grips with the lingo.