Lost and found

There was a pep talk the night before Disneyland Paris.

I am sure we are not the first couple to require it: It’s all about the kids...let’s try our hardest to be part of the magic for them...there will be tricky parts but we have to remain incredibly positive throughout...let’s make this a really special day…'

We had the best intentions. Honestly we did. But we were up against it.

Firstly, there was a problem with the uber ride to the train station (yes, I was prepared to catch the RER but could not quite bring myself to add the metro ride to connect our local metro station to Chatelet les Halles). What could have been a brisk 20 minute walk turned into a 40 minute disastrous drive as our driver wove through endless underground tunnels - not once, but twice on the same route. He then proceeded to wind down his window half a dozen times: “S’il vous plait madame, chatelet-les-halles?’. I would have thought the largest underground train station in the world was not difficult to find. Bad assumption.

Forty minutes later than planned we were on the RER heading to Disneyland. Unfortunately we had given Molly a verbal itinerary for the day so the forty minutes really did matter. But we found the magic and got back on track. High five to each other. We can do this.

We disembarked about ten minutes after the gate was open and got through security (‘don’t worry about the queuing guys, this is a good thing - every time our bags get checked and our bodies scanned we should be pleased they’re doing it. It’s to keep us safe’) to enter the world of Disney. Nothing like some fake fountains, a floral tribute in the shape of Mickey Mouse and hoards of grown women wearing Minnie Mouse ears to get the magic started.

And then we lost Matilda.

Yes I know I’m prone to exaggeration. But in this instance entirely accurate. Before we had even entered Disneyland itself (which would have been more comforting as no malicious activity could ever be suspected inside the gates) we realised six had become five. For fifteen frantic minutes we parked the other three in a spot and each ran madly around the concourse trying to find her. And then a member of the public saw/heard my distress and came up asking me if she looked like my other child (of course, she does, matching Liberty dresses as always, identical from head to foot but reddish hair and slightly taller). Don’t worry, he assured me, ‘they’ve’ got her, he’d seen her walking with one of the Disney people to the gate. I could have kissed him - and in fact I kept one eye out for him for the rest of the day in the hope that I could rush up and tell him how much I appreciated him. I pushed past people to get to the ticket entrance to utter those words you think you’ll never need to use because you are far too sensible and careful: ‘I’ve lost my child’. Being the efficient world of Disney they were already prepped and waiting for my arrival: ‘Don’t worry madam, we’ve got her, I will ring for them to bring her’.

Instantly relief followed by, in the five long minutes it took for them to deliver her from the ‘Lost Child’ office, concern that your precious five year-old will turn in to an adult who still feels traumatised by the day she turned around at Disneyland to realise that her entire family had gone and were nowhere...

This blog was supposed to be about the universal language of Disney. But instead it turns out to be about something so much more important. One of the biggest lessons of all. That when faced with the loss of something you realise how incredibly, painfully precious it is to you. I guess that’s the general plot for a lot of Disney blockbusters afterall.

We are very, very happy to still be six (and still without adult-sized Minnie Mouse ears).