Here we go, then - blogging every day for October.  I blame Squidge of Squidge's Squiggles.   Are you allowed to blame people for your own blogging?  Well, I am.  So there.

To kick things off, I could talk about the strike action taking place today across schools in my area.  I could comment on the American Government overshadowing that with its own shutdown.  I could even gush about my newly built orangery (sitting in it right now and it is sweet).

Instead, I think I will go with a true passion.

Dragons.

The trailer for the next Hobbit movie is out and we finally get to hear the voice of Smaug.  As my favourite moment in the first movie was the eye opening moment right at the end, I have high hopes for this second installment.

This impending (several-hour long) experience of glee and geekery is hardly the only time in my life I will be happy to spend time thinking about a dragon.  Hell, it isn't even the only time this year.  Come to think of it, a good bit of today was spent on the subject.  So perhaps I should think about why I love dragons so much.

Partly, it must be to do with the great Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern series.  As a kid, I cried every time I read the short story entitled 'The Littlest Dragonboy'.  It was a real tugging-on-the-heartstrings moment.  This kid, this little (the title really was a bit Ronseal in that way) boy, was bullied and lonely and full of a vague sense of not belonging, and he got a dragon.  In the world of Pern, that means always being loved, always being someone to the creature you love most and always having some really pretty jewel-like eyes to stare into.  It means belonging.

Now, Smaug is clearly not the same sort of dragon.  Neither is the majestic beast in The Wizard of Earthsea.  However, whereas Pern gave me dragons which meant never feeling left out or unwanted, the dragons in these more traditional epics showed wisdom, guile and strength.  They were masters of words.  What little girl could fail to be swayed by that?

What do you mean, normal ones?  Screw being normal.  Give me magical words with which to build magical worlds.

Somehow, these different versions of dragons amalgamaed in my mind to form a creature which is the embodiment of wit, wisdom and wordplay, which is always a home to the people who find this world a bit...well, drab and confusing, frankly.  Overwhelming, too.  But dragons don't get overwhelmed.

They do get stuck full of arrows when they fly over Laketown, but we all have our issues.

A lot of people seem to find my love of dragons amusing.  Other teachers smile and shake their heads.  One fellow teacher made a special trip to the English office to tell me she is nothing like me.  Lovely.  And I agree.  Thank any lord you care to name.  I think those people are failing to consider that I don't just love dragons because of their beauty (and I do find many images of dragons to be breathtaking, especially a well-done European style dragon with 6 limbs), but also because of what they represent.

They can be animalistic, brutal, fierce, wise, loyal, cryptic, greedy and a host of other things.  The wonderful Game of Thrones has given dragons which are power and have informed the world of something which it should already have known - fire cannot kill a dragon.  Given the character most closely connected to these words has suffered abuse, bereavement and betrayal, and kept going, this symbol of survival and the ability to keep going through all the awful things life can throw at you is just another aspect to love about the whole dragon symbolism.

Yeah, I'm going to stuck with my assertion that I am a dragon.