The Beginning of Hope.....

The Old Lady (Harold's Mother) was watching her son with suspicion. Since he had come back from his morning walk he had taken to pacing up and down the garden, shaking his head and muttering to himself. She had offered him a cup of tea and a sandwich for lunch, but he had just smiled at her and carried on walking. She knew then that something most extraordinary was happening. For it seemed an age since Harold had last smiled, she felt a flutter of hope in her heart - perhaps, just perhaps there was a way forward.

She thought it best to leave him to his thoughts and to be busy with her own plans. So putting on her glasses, she set to sorting out her seed packets and making plans for her Spring flower beds.

Feeling tired at last, Harold sat down on the bench, 'it's just not rational' he thought as he gazed up at the sky, 'but it's true I do remember something, I do remember having friends in the forest when I was younger - perhaps I am going mad after all.'

For what neither the Old Lady or the Gnomes of the Forest knew, was that Harold wasn't just on his summer holidays, he had been asked to take time off because he had been acting so strangely at work. He was very worried that he might lose his job because try as he might, he couldn't seem to care any more about his job, the company and the turnover. His mind was always drifting away - and then there had been the mistake over the year end accounting figures which he couldn't take seriously, and all in all. he felt his life was unknown prison of duty and joylessness. That was when he had had his desperate idea of selling the Forest for timber and to apply for planning permission.

'What an idiot I've been, lost my way trying to prove myself, forcing myself on and on. What am I going to do now? If I go back to the Forest tomorrow I might go mad - nobody else talks to gnomes.' Harold sat on the bench and began to gently cry - now this was no bad thing because crying was the beginning of him feeling again, and feeling again was the beginning of hope.

The Old Lady, who had been keeping an eye on him out of the window, came out and sitting down next to him asked, 'from how you are, I imagine you have met some of the Forest Gnomes? Most strange My Dear, when you first meet them - but such a delight when you get used to them. I never mentioned to you that I had made contact with them - I was frightened that you would think I'd lost my marbles!' For the second time that day Harold gazed in stunned amazement, 'you talk with them too?'