Stories to dine on!
Setting off from Inverness mid morning, we reached our destination for the day, Harwich, almost at 1:30am. ~15 hours on the road, across landscapes that seem so full of stories, every house, lake, meadow, mountain; I catch only glimpses of these. The rest of the narratives are supplied by ye ol’ faithful Audible!
We did not know what adventure awaited us in Harwich, though! By the time we got in, the reception staff at our inn had left for the night. We had a very early morning of queueing up with our car for the ferry to Europe, so decided we would rather nap in the car than waste the three hours we had looking for an alternative bed for the night! We will be dining on that story for years!!
The otherwise quaint town of Harwich seems to have inspired many stories. Do you know that Skip the train ferry from Thomas and Friends was inspired by the famous Harwich Rail Ferries? A possible nod to the awe that the writers of the series felt at the sight of these strange machine beasts that carry train engines across the ocean waters.
If stories paint our perception of places, just imagine how much they might be shaping our perception of people. Another character comes to mind, Bruno the brake car, who is autistic and has earmuffs for especially noisy environments.
The company behind Thomas and Friends, Mattel, is known for their inclusivity-focused endeavors, including recently, the launch of a Barbie doll who has Down Syndrome.
Children are inherently inclusive and will naturally play a huge role in making our world more inclusive in the near future – it seems Mattel knows and understands this.
Naina, of @inclusiveduniya is also a representation of the same sentiment, introduced as a character championing inclusion for those who might find themselves in an unforgiving world that rejects diversity instead of rewarding it. It is characters like Naina and Bruno who will help children begin that ever-necessary journey towards a more inclusive world, a journey that we are paving the path for, today!
Speaking of journeys, the next dispatch from the other side in the Netherlands