From goldenstone the shy sun fills the vale with swathes of light and the mistle thrush, her song catches in my throat for it is all as the words climbed aloft and made true. Some things are real my loves, some things are real.

Over beacon hill, draped in oak and beech with squirrels in every bole and my shadow caught in the Devil’s grave. Onwards and upwards, for I must find the iron gates and whisper ‘Emalagra’ and if they will not open there is Holy well and copper pennies, bright as stars.

Fallen logs are dragons here, it is their right, and none climb the hill after dark. An elfmade wall holds back the rhodendrons and the Morthbrood, and Her. I am often alone, up on Saddlebole with a touch of fear in my toes and the Wizard warns me not to drink the water. This is the Edge.

She was not sure if it was the stone, or some fey quality of the light but everything was golden. Gilt lamposts and the crown of Isis, molten in the canals and all the birds sung like wire nightingales from the towers. Did they have to wind them up? She wondered. Faces peered from cornerpieces, faces with tusks and horns and dainty claws, but she was not frightened, she knew who they were meant to keep out. From Hamelin she came, following the sound of a flute which led to a curly haired boy, but he dissapeared. Fauns in the gardens, robins on fences and croquet in the meadows. Evensong and bells that shook the stones themselves. Bicycles clattered over cobblestones as the wind made raven wings of scholar’s robes and she lost her way, looking for sighs. These pages were old and yellowed, they crackled underfoot, muffled by the dust.

‘…Oxford, where the real and unreal jostle in the streets; where North Parade is in the south and South Parade is in the north, where Paradise is lost under a pumping station; where the river mists have a solvent and vivifying effect on the stone of the ancient buildings, so that the gargoyles of Magdalen College climb down at night and fight with those from Wykeham, or fish under the bridges, or simply change their expressions overnight; Oxford, where windows open in to other worlds…’ Oscar Baedecker, The Coasts of Bohemia

Seventeen hours in cloud land, then on to yesterday. I doze through the daylight with stories whispered in my ears and then, only then, does the journey begin. Read. The chapter opens with one Lost Princess, looking for ancient kingdoms revealed to her twelve year old self in the stained pages of second hand books. Following crumpled maps from Radnor Mere to Kanchenjunga and over Paradise Hill to the bay where the evening primroses grow. Two miles for each page, she walks through a land made of books, a kingdom dressed in stories, but will she find her inkworld? Her heart is made of words, words and ink, afterall.

I will be back in a month, dearhearts.

Maman is back. We picked her up yesterday with a big bunch of yellow daisies to apologise for the weather. This morning I saw an owl, she was up late, silently winging home like an errant ghost. I was in the burnt woods. A fire went through here a year ago and the green is only starting to come back. There are broken bits of wall and piping. Its a good place to play.

I like chasing sunsets. I followed this one through the empty streets and down down a steep hill, along a little forsaken alley where someone was sweeping up autumn leaves like molten gold. Autumn is the time of afternoons, of endings. I don’t really like them, they make me sleepy and wistful and a little bit sad. I must try very hard to remember that another dawn is not far away, just on the other side of winter.

I chased the Sunset all the way to my bench in the park, where I like to sit and write. There I lost it behind the trees and the clouds, so I gave up and walked home in the purple twilight.

You might think a swamp is an ugly place, but actually I’m rather fond of the one in my kingdom. It has an eerie dark beauty and I love the way the light filters through the trees onto the water.

This place I call the Sea of Violets. There is a little wooden bridge built so that you can cross it. The frogs croak here sometimes.