June 2016
From the Dragons’ Den
Lots and lots of birthdays recently! One Big Dragon has celebrated a very significant birthday with lots of parties to mark the big day. One could ask – what is a significant birthday? What is it that makes some birthdays more special than others?
Few of us will remember very early birthdays but, those with children will, no doubt, have fond memories of the first birthday that was celebrated with each child.
All birthdays seem to be special at Little Dragons as we who are Leaders observe and delight in the increasing growth and developing skills of those whose company we enjoy each week. The fourth birthday is a bit sad for us as we know that quite soon we will be losing our Little Dragon to the big world of school.
Will he or she remember the thrill of blowing out the candle on our special birthday train; or of holding George, Uncle Sam and, occasionally, Idris (providing he hasn’t had to stay in the basket for good reason), the birthday singing and clapping?
Important birthdays for many of us may have been – eleven, as we prepared for secondary education; eighteen or maybe twenty-one when we possibly embraced adulthood (although some never seem to); forty, when life is supposed to begin, although, now that sixty is the new forty, seventy is the new fifty and eighty is the time to prove that, apart from still being able to walk about, we are possibly the trendiest OAP that ever existed, we can ask, ‘Does age really matter?’
Whatever our age and condition and however we might appear to the rest of the world, inside we are probably still the same person who delighted in birthdays of long ago – and (one hopes) long may it continue!
Happy birthday to you, whenever it may fall, from everyone at Little Dragons.
Val Butterworth