A Story / Zgodba

Lately I have been noticing that the kids like and understand stories more than they used to. As I am a big fan of stories myself I told them a story about a hobbit (yeah, ok I stole the story, but they do not know that). But this was not just an ordinary telling, we tried to recreate the story as we walked the gorgeous Eremitage from the gardens to the Dragon Cave, where our story ended. On the way, while the kids were immersed in the story, their minds were opened to all kinds of new things. They just needed their imagination stirred a little and then everything, even a tiny bit new, was interesting.

Like these things, which I still do not know what they really are (maybe my household doctor of biology will know or one of the many readers of this blog will recognize what they are), but for us today they were little baby dragon hatchlings (they were gross enough):

In our story these were the old kings of the kingdom who slew the first dragon:

Then this fire flower crossed our path. I To us it looked as if touched by the dragon fire:

On the way we got parched and hot, so we found a vendor of a magical thing that is cool even in the sunlight and melts in our mouths – amazing right – the things you can find in stories.

And at this point of the story I made a mistake in the telling. Although the kids are obviously old enough to get excited by a story and they have enough patience to listen to it, you must never ever mention a thing that excites them too much. In the story of the Hobbit it was the mention of Orcs and Trolls that blew the roof off. It was just too much for them to find out that there are such gruesome things as Orcs, even if they are just fictional. »Daddy, why were there orcs. Where do they come from? What do they look like? What did they do? Why are they ugly and scary? Did they win the battle?«. And so the story ended, under a storm of questions, incited by my mention of a creature their mind is too young to grasp.

Still, it was a good story, and walking through it I realized I fell in love with Eremitage for the third time (maybe I am just that easy). The details of this park are…are…I can`t seem to find a proper word, so I`ll just say awesome. Later on we found small pool, a little bit forgotten I might say, but it had frogs and tadpoles in it. I had to threaten the kids that I will leave them there if they aren`t going to the car immediately. They ran laughing. It was a good adventure.

In the end I will try to stimulate the imagination of anyone who reads this.

Do you remember this story:

And do you know this one:

Slovenska verzija:

Zadnje čase opažam, da sta otroka vedno bolj dojemljiva za zgodbice, saj jih bolje razumeta in jim lažje sledita. Ker sem tudi sam velik ljubitelj zgodb, sem jima povedal zgodbo o Hobbitu (sej vem,d a sem si jo malo sposodil, ampak ona dva ne vesta). Nisem pa je želel le povedati, ampak sem hotel, da jo doživita. Zato smo dogajanje v zgodbi poskusili doživeti med našim sprehodom po čudovitem parku Eremitage, in sicer vse do Zmajeve jame, kjer se je zgodba končala. Na poti, ko sta bila otroka prevzeta z zgodbo, je bila njuna domišljija odprta za nove stvari. Vse kar sta rabila je začetek zgodbe in smo vsi skupaj odplavali v domišljijski svet, poln čudovitih neznanih stvari.

Kot na primer čudni prozorni črvi (zgoraj prvi dve sliki, za katere mi bo mogoče moja žena doktor biologije znala povedati kaj so, ali pa če jih kateri od številnih bralcev bloga pozna) so bili za danes, za potrebe zgodbe majhni mladički zmaja (če ne drugega, so bili vsekakor dovolj nagravžni).

Zlati kipi na Sončni palači so bili v zgodbi kralji starega kraljestva, ki so ubili prvega zmaja.

Na poti smo naleteli na rožo, ki se nam je zdela, da jo je oplazil zmajev ogenj in je zato imela teko žive barve.

Ker je vsaka pustolovščina naporna, sploh v žgočem soncu, smo se na poti ustavili pri prodajalcu, ki nam je prodal čarobno stvar, ki je mrzla tudi v soncu in se kot čarovnija stopi v ustih – noro ne, kaj vse najdeš v zgodbah.

In na tej točki pripovedovanja sem naredil kritično napako. Čeprav sta otroka dovolj velika, da se navdušita nad zgodbo in imata dovolj potrpljenja za poslušanje, nikoli ne smem več omeniti kakšne stvari, ki preveč podžge njuno domišljijo. V naši zgodbi o Hobbitu so bili to Orki in Troli, ki so bili preveč za njuno domišljijo. Preprosto nista mogla preiti preko dejstva, da obstajajo, pa čeprav le v zgodbah, tako grozne stvari kot so orki. »Ati, zakaj so bili orki? Ati, od kje prihajajo orki? Kako izgledajo? Kaj so naredili? Zakaj so grdi in grozni? Ali so oni zmagali na koncu?« In tako se je končala naša zgodba, pod točo vprašanj, ki jih je spodbudila moja omemba stvari, za katero sta še premlada.

Kljub slabemu koncu, je bila dobra zgodba. In na poti skozi našo zgodbo sem se še tretjič zaljubil v Eremitage (mogoče sem pač tako labilen, kaj pa vem). Podrobnosti parka so…so…ne znam drugače povedati kot FANTASTIČNE. Ko smo se vračali po drugi poti, smo naleteli na majhen bazenček, ki so ga oskrbniki malce pozabili. Ampak ravno zato je imel notri žabe in paglavce. Moral sem zagroziti otrokoma, da ju bom pustil tam, če ne gresta pri priči v avto. Po tem sta stekla v avto, z nasmeškom na ustih. Imeli smo dobro pustolovščino.

Na zadnjih dveh slikah so podobe na vazah in vsakega, ki bo tole bral izzivam, da ugotovi kateri zgodbi sta na njih prikazani.