It Must Be In The Genes

I have a daughter with special educational needs. She has more than her fair share of disabilities – not least the inability to communicate properly. We’ve been together for twenty-nine years, and (even with all my experience) often I have no idea what she is trying to tell me. But she isn’t stupid, and can find ways and means of getting the message home. One of these is the use of her little Sony Cybershot. They say a picture is worth a thousand words: well since she doesn’t have a thousand words, that’s doubly true for her. So, recently, as she sat at her bedroom window, she spotted an aircraft flying at high altitude. Instantly she knew she’d seen something I could use in one of my Earplug Adventures. A couple of minutes later I was presented with this…

…and told that it would look great with a spaceship on the end of it – though not quite in those words. I duly obliged…

…and the Gravity Whelk had launched. I then took it a step further…

By the time I’d finished, some clouds had blown in and the vapour trail had dissipated. Noting that the clouds appeared as if they were being viewed from above – as though from an aircraft…

…my daughter had another creative idea: the wispy vapour trail was obviously caused by a falling aircraft or space ship. She brought the picture to me immediately. This is the result of our co-operation…