We left Dawlish under clouds and a mist at sea but when my brother Bill and I arrived at Cockington (Torquay) the sun came out. We had a wonderful hour (dictated somewhat by the ticket we acquired in the car park) wandering through the village and walking by the lakes. We were pricked by the memory of last time we came to Cockington together – when our dad was ill near the end of his life – but we lingered not and walked on through gardens with flowers and live music. We drove home in the sunshine, with the top down on my sporty little Peugeot, and we smiled all the way; we were so glad that we went to Cockington for an hour. My neighbour Martin said it had been miserable all day in Dawlish.

“What’s this?” Chris asked, picking up a bookmark which must have fallen out of a book onto the top of a bookshelf.

“It’s my personalized ‘Sally’ bookmark,” I said. “I think Mary gave it to me years ago.”

“Meaning Ladylike,” he said, raising his eyebrows, as he began to read down the list of meanings for the name Sally, “‘Originating from Hebrew. Elegant and refined you are often called Princess.”‘

“That’s me,” I confirmed. (It’s so good to hear nice things, no matter the source.)

“But I don’t call you Princess – who calls you Princess?”, my husband feigned jealousy.

“Well, I don’t know but I’m sure that someone has called me Princess,” I said, keeping to myself a name that sprang to mind instantly (you have to keep some things to yourself!).

“‘Comfortable in your own company or with others’, and ‘A joy to be with you are liked by everyone.’ That’s true,” Chris conceded with a smile and we went to bed.

I hasten to say it was bedtime when we had this conversation.

A short while later in bed, when Chris was reading yet another “Reader’s Digest” and I was checking my smart phone for messages before closing down for the night, I discovered a “friend request” from an unknown name. The name appeared to me to be Indian and the small profile icon was an image of a vase of flowers. I clicked on the icon to find out more before making the decision to reject or accept the request. The message read:

“Take good care of yourself Princess!”

“Look at that!” I turned to Chris excitedly, “Somebody called me Princess.”

“Funnier still,” Chris said pointing to the line he had been reading, “at that very moment I read the word Princess!” (The article was about Japanese Princes and Princesses.)

“Synchronicity!” we said together.

And if there is any meaning to this, I think that something is trying to tell Chris to call me Princess. That will be the day!

“Who uses Esperanto?” I asked Chris over breakfast.

The previous night we had watched a new, and different type of film, called “Captain Fantastic” starring Viggo Mortensen, about a family going it alone in the wilds of “the North Pacific” and the underlying problems of “opting out”, especially with regard to the wishes and aspirations of the individual children; and had the mother’s disorder, leading to her premature demise, been exacerbated by their isolated natural lifestyle? Of course, the home educated children were geniuses and could even speak Esperanto, which is why Esperanto was on my mind.

Chris Googled “Esperanto” on his mobile phone and soon informed me that (reading from Wikepedia), “It is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world.^[7] The Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, Unua Libro, on 26 July 1887. The name of Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto (“Esperanto” translates as “one who hopes”), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published Unua Libro.^[8]“

“Goodness!”, I said, “I wonder why an ophthalmologist felt the need to develop Esperanto.”

“Perhaps he didn’t see eye-to-eye with his patients!”, Chris observed.

He read on for a couple more paragraphs after which I understood a good deal more than I did before about the purpose and goals of introducing a constructed language that incorporates words from several other languages (I’ll paste some of the text below).

“Do you think we should learn Esperanto? I laughed.

“So we can understand each other at last?” my husband paused and shook his head, “I don’t think it will help!”

Captain Fantastic review – thrilling and poignant | Film | The Guardian

Esperanto (/ˌɛspəˈræntoʊ/ or /–ˈrɑː–/;^[5][6] in Esperanto: [espeˈranto]  listen (help·info)) is a constructed international auxiliary language. It is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world.^[7] The Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, Unua Libro, on 26 July 1887. The name of Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto (“Esperanto” translates as “one who hopes”), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published Unua Libro.^[8]

Zamenhof had three goals, as he wrote in Unua Libro:

1. “To render the study of the language so easy as to make its acquisition mere play to the learner.”
2. “To enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not; in other words, the language is to be directly a means of international communication.”
3. “To find some means of overcoming the natural indifference of mankind, and disposing them, in the quickest manner possible, and en masse, to learn and use the proposed language as a living one, and not only in last extremities, and with the key at hand.”^[9]

Up to two million people worldwide, to varying degrees, speak Esperanto,^[10] including about 1,000 to 2,000 native speakers who learned Esperanto from birth.^[1]The World Esperanto Association has more than 5,500 members in 120^[11] countries. Its usage is highest in Europe, East Asia, and South America.^[12] lernu!, the most popular online learning platform for Esperanto, reported 150,000 registered users in 2013, and sees between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors each month.^[13]With about 239,000 articles, Esperanto Wikipedia is the 32nd-largest Wikipedia as measured by the number of articles,^[14] and is the largest Wikipedia in a constructed language.^[15] On 22 February 2012, Google Translate added Esperanto as its 64th language.^[16] On 28 May 2015, the language learning platform Duolingo launched an Esperanto course for English speakers. As of 5 April 2017, over 800,000 users had signed up,^[17][18][19] with approximately 30 users completing the course every day.^[20]

The first World Congress of Esperanto was organized in France in 1905. Since then, congresses have been held in various countries every year, with the exceptions of years during the world wars. Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially, “Esperantujo” is the collective name given to places where it is spoken. Esperanto was recommended by the French Academy of Sciences in 1921 and recognized by UNESCO in 1954, which recommended in 1985 that international non-governmental organizations use Esperanto. Esperanto was the 32nd language accepted as adhering to the “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages” in 2007.^[21]

Esperanto is currently the language of instruction of the International Academy of Sciences in San Marino.^[22]

Esperanto is seen by many of its speakers^[who?] as an alternative or addition to the growing use of English throughout the world, offering a language that is easier for French speakers to learn than English.^[23]