Noone ever forgives us for changing. They want us to be constant as the wind and always wear the same colours but we’re not meant to be that way. We’re supposed to be a little different each morning when we wake up and I think it’s our dreams that do it. Last night I was a sailor and woke with sand in my sheets and salt in my hair, and the night before that I was a wood nymph who rose with the dawn chorus and dewed lips. Every two years I change alltogether and become someone else wearing the same eyes. It’s a little uncomfortable, like a snake shedding skins. They never forgive me for changing but I do it with passion because you need to die a little bit now and then to feel alive.

(p.s. aren’t these the prettiest flowers? they seem to worship the sky. could you even choose a more perfect name for them than ‘cosmos’?)

Sometimes I wish I were blonde, with thistle down hair that floats on the breeze and wispy brows, and lashes that are barely there. There is something so fragile about pale skin, pale hair, lilac unicorns made in to girls against their will.

Then I remember all the brave, proud brunettes. I remember Wendy and Dorothy and Sara and dearest Lucy and I tie my braids like a badge of honour. For we are the fierce, clever, plucky little maidens who save lost boys and open wardrobe doors and remember, in our dreams, how to fly.

It’s fire outside, and I’m bottled up in a glass jar, all windows. A little greenhouse. So I close the curtains and lie down on the cool, calm floor. Books flap about me on paper wings, insects in fine print, dizzying. Restless, I pace the room and my toes stick to the wood boards. The burnt light leaking through the blinds makes me melt like chocolate.

Christmas this year was owls and turtledoves and books and yards of ribbon, cold turkey and salad and chocolate straws and cherries. Ginger beer like champagne and christmas kisses (but no mistletoe) and gold edged tea cups in pink boxes and absoloutely perfect.

They don’t understand, when they give it to you, that they bleed out all the joy. That stars become specks of sand and flowers fade to paper cuts. Magic should never be homework, then it wouldn’t be magic. Homework de-magics things, you see, even if you write it with quill and yellow parchment, it comes out all inkblots. I need to know about ships, and about conjurers and manticores, but I just want to play outside and read my books and sing. Forgetting shoulds and s’posed tos. It never goes away, you know, even when you’re all grown up, they just stop checking up on you. Somehow that makes it harder.

I am sitting in shadows and eating chocolate biscuits because it is too bright outside. The sun singes the leaves and makes the pavement hot to run on. Patch and I watch L’Ecole and I tie ribbons in my hair. My christmas tree has white leaves with gossamer film. It doesn’t snow here, it never snows, but I can pretend.

p.s. I made a little film for you, because I couldn’t just photograph it. The music box is from Claire.

Can you see the Ship? He said. The Ghost ship on the sea. It comes so very near some days, it will come one day, for me. I can not see the Ship. I said. Out beyond the waves. But I can see an island blue, where I shall spend my days. When my ship comes in. He said, waiting on a breath. I will live my dreams, you’ll see, and die a hero’s death. There in paradise. I said, my little heart on fire. I’ll find the wishing fruit, bright red, and have all I desire.

These are my new neighbours, Mr William Wagtail and his lovely wife. They are singers by profession but have decided to settle down and raise a family. I like to listen to them rehearsing while I brush my teeth.