Almost seven, my niece sits with me, reading. I hold her close. She holds a postcard sent from Australia: "We have arrived at a small town famed for its statue of a dog on a tucker box" Her eyes are so perfectly blue, they seem like crystal. Her concentration is absolute - she is unblinkingly in the moment. No worries about the cat or the milkman, death or taxes. Just 5x3 inches of card from halfway round the world, and a small child, at perfect ease in my arms, at the dawn of experience.