demoiselle, fierce sprite, 19th century brick railway arches, buddleia and brambles from ledges, stained by rain, the odd siren or train klaxon, and me moving through the heavily-breathed London air again.
Further up the slope there was a hint of a noctule bat’s chip-chop call coming through the static of the airwaves, but nothing else. There are very few bats around, the woodland all but shorn of them.
My son was not two and my daughter turned six during our first night in London, where we slept in the old house of Edward Lear. That’s how I make travel plans, by seeking out the stomping grounds of dead poets.
