The family, that dear octopus from whos tentacles we never quite escape, not in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.

I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated subconscious...

Our excited voices only made the castle seem more silent.

How strange and beautiful it looked in the late afternoon light! I can still recapture that first glimpse - see the sheer grey stone walls and towers against the pale yellow sky, the reflected castle stretching towards us on the brimming moat, the floating patches of emerald-green water-weed.

Why don't you ever fly through the windmill again? That's a sure crowd pleaser.

The family – that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.

It was wonderful, of course – ham with mustard is a meal of glory.

The Vicar isn’t High Church enough for confessions, and certainly most of me would have loathed to tell him or anybody else one word; but I did have a feeling that a person as wretched as I was ought to be able to get some sort of help from the Church. Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn’t. You can’t get insurance money without paying in premiums.

Perhaps he found beauty saddening – I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty’s evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die.

When things mean a very great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn’t safe.