Thanks to all those who supported the launch of the final book in my children’s series last month (‘Delilah Dark vs. Destiny’)- your purchases, RTs, shares and likes were very much appreciated. And to the three parents who’ve told me their children have now started demanding coffee ‘like Delilah Dark’, my apologies.
This week I was immersed in children’s literature again, as I visited my friend Hannah in Oxford and decided to do a bit of a literary tour. First I headed for the botanical gardens, supposedly the setting for the croquet games in ‘Alice in Wonderland’, and also the place in Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ where Lyra and Will promise to sit on a bench each midsummer in their separate realities, in order to feel eachother’s presence (someone has carved their names there). After this I went to the Ashmolean to see some Edward Lears (I am reading the wonderful biography ‘Edward Lear:The Life of a Wanderer’ by Vivien Noakes as part of my nonsense research); passed the ‘Narnia door’ meant to have inspired CS Lewis’ wardrobe; wandered by the Isis on Christchurch meadows and paid a visit to the Alice in Wonderland shop, the original model for the sheep’s shop in ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ (and where I picked up a gorgeous edition of ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ with pictures by Moomin author Tove Jansson)
On my return to London yesterday, I ended up at a private view at the new Photographer’s Gallery by Oxford Circus. Mishka Henner (who with Liz Lock took the cover photo of the young morris dancer for ‘Changeling’) has been nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for his exhibition No Man’s Land, sourced from Google Street View, showing prostitutes in Spain and Italy waiting in liminal, road-side spaces to be picked up- the pictures are voyeuristic and sad and oddly beautiful. Highly recommended.
The motorways, the bench, the wardrobe, the looking glass – my week has been full of snags and portals: places where different realities meet. And I will be falling through my own rabbit-hole soon, entering a very different world, altered by a child’s perspective…
For now though, a flapjack is saying EAT ME.
clarepollard 
Dear Clare, good luck with this next stage in your life! I wished after the birth of each of my kids that I had the talent to write about labour and how incredibly intense and awful and wonderful it is – all at once. in the wee hours (and you will come to know every hour of the night and will welcome 4am like an old friend) will you please turn your mind to giving a voice to a very personal but also universal experience?
Thank you