This month there is a Muggle pandemic going on and everyone is living under restrictions and having to stay at home; which can induce cabin fever. Some can go out and others can't, but that doesn't mean that you should feel you have to stay at home in the same four walls. There is an endpoint to this, so stick with me here! This then led me to a painting I know from a Muggle movie and this movie was first a book.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a book in The Chronicles of Narnia series by Professor C.S. Lewis and it shows how a painting comes to life and transports Lucy and Edmund Pevensie and their cousin Eustace Clarence Scubb back to the world Lucy and Edmund love so much. Now, I can already hear the cries of what does a painting have to do with staying at home? Well let me explain! The painting came to life and sucked the three inside - so why can't we do that? Pretend a picture has come to life and has sucked us in? Make an adventure of being at home. Be a kid again! Enjoy the time with younger siblings. Transport yourself to a new world and beat the cabin fever!
Lucy and Edmund, along with Eustace, find themselves trapped on a boat in the middle of the sea as they reunite with their dear friends - the now King Caspian and Reepicheep the Mouse. The Pevensies and their cousin then find themselves mainly on a boat travelling across the sea. Now you see where the cabin fever comes into it!
I am quite content being at home and only going out when I need to get something but imagine being stuck on a ship for days on end ... Lucy and Edmund could only move around the ship and they had to keep themselves busy, whether that was playing chess with a mouse or learning new things for sailing. After all, there is only so much that you can do before you start going crazy really. It's the same as us when we're stuck inside and can't go out. The only difference is that they had the sea air around them the whole time but that means they are restricted to being at sea.
The Dawn Treader does pull up at Narnian islands throughout the journey, but doesn't spend too long on land. Which makes it so hard to know whether the time on land helped or not. I know that going outside once a week is enough for me but, for the company on the ship, it must have been hard getting back onto the ship and not knowing when you'll next see land. I know when I'm next going out because it's becoming a routine for me now ... albeit a different one to the one I have been used to, but it's still a routine!
Also I live in a house and with my grandparents but I couldn't imagine us being on a ship where we couldn't really escape anyone. I think that would drive me crazy really. I mean, I doubt I'd have WiFi (a Muggle thing), unless it was a ship in the Muggle world, so I'd be able to read and colour as much as I wanted but after a while that would get boring. Being around the same people would also ... maybe ... quite possibly ... send me a bit loopy as well. Especially when there are days that you're endlessly stuck at sea with no sign of land. If it were a big ship then it would be easy to survive, but a little ship like what the Dawn Treader is? I honestly don't think I'd be able to cope very well at all.
I've never really been on a boat for more than a couple of hours and it was a ferry on the way to France, but imagine being on a ship for more than say two days at a time and nothing to see but sea in every direction you look. It must make you feel pretty down at times, but to be in mostly quiet places as well must be nice sometimes. As you can really take a look around and think about things that you are normally unable to think about, make plans and do things that you have been unable to do.
Anyway! Lucy, Edmund, and a changed for the better Eustace made it back to our world and I guess what I'm trying to say is this: take a picture in your room or house or even pick one from the internet and make up your own adventures about what happens when you go inside the painting! There are ways to beat cabin fever. Just because you're inside doesn't mean you can't find ways to have adventures!
Until next time!
Adele xx