I used to watch them from my bedroom. Peering out of my window hoping they wouldn’t see me. Little sparks of blue that flickered and shot around the garden, cute little smiles on their faces as they put the flowers to sleep for the night and woke the grumpy old moths, and flies.

Occasionally, if I stayed really still, one would come and land on the window sill. Taking a rest in the middle of all that work. Then I could see the beautiful filigree in their wings, and the amazingly perfect faces and ears, all of them no bigger than a small child’s thumb. Those were the magic nights, the fairy nights.

They’ve gone now that I’ve grown. The blue fairies of my childhood passed away as reason and scepticism grew. Hard science replaced intense fantasy and my career as a rocket engineer seemed more important, strangely, than the delicate tracery of fairy wings.

So when I look out of my window at night, the same one that I had as a boy, I no longer see the blue fairies of my childhood.

Only the pinks and the greens.