Your future happiness is assured

Last Wednesday, in the midst of our rather soggy Cornish holiday, Belle and I sheltered from the rain in Boscastle in the Museum of Witchcraft.

Belle likes a bit of mystery and magic, so enjoyed poking around, checking out the various curses she might be able to employ against me should I ask her to do anything hideous like tidy her bedroom. I enjoyed the Hitler pin cushions that were apparently popular during WWII and the wartime ads in the Readers Digest, encouraging us all to make our own Hitler dolls and stick pins in them. Every little helps I suppose.

We also both had a go on the tarot machine:

Belle was given the magician:

Pretty positive I thought. A good sign for mine and Bee’s plan to propel Belle into a career in musical theatre.

I put my coin in, crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t end up with something depressing like the death card, and was very pleased to have the arrow land on the sun:

Now obviously I know that it is just a random arrow spinning around. I know that my happiness isn’t necessarily assured just because the Museum of Witchcraft tarot machine says so, but I found it comforting all the same. I guess it’s really just an extension of positive thinking, of adopting a mantra designed to inspire you, and it really did do the trick.

I’m the same with horoscopes. Of course I know that I’m not going to have exactly the same kind of day as one in twelve people in the country, just because we happened to be born around the same time, but it can still feel good sometimes to have a bit of extra direction and motivation can’t it? ‘This week will see a great opportunity present itself, so seize it with both hands’ – a lot of nonsense really, but encouraging nonetheless.

What do you think about fortune-telling? Is there anything in it, or is it just a harmless bit of fun that we can use to promote a bit of positive thinking?

It might have rained for most of our holidays, but with my future happiness assured, the sun is definitely shining on me.