Saturday 12 April

Out of early morning sunshine a shape appears at the window, likewise golden. Fortunately this isn’t another snuff overdose - I will not be led across marshmallow meadows by that infuriating fawn and his army of skipping pixies - but a genuine hallucination: a legendary Uruguayan phoenix. The fine creature drops the mottled remnants of Shifty McQuiggin’s favourite rat-with-wings, no doubt intercepted on his way to deliver more threats, and then communicates discretely with Sanchez. And somehow I already know (through bird-brained telepathy perhaps) that Daisy is back in town and things are about to get more interesting; either so painful, or so wonderful, as to make footerball-thumped feet and whatever those at number 13 might inflict, no more than flames to fire-resistant poultry. The sun-tanned lass (from Glasgow?) is replying to a recent weemail concerning my horizontal malaise and promises (bless her pixie toes) to bring me sympathy and biscuits very soon.

Later, while attempting to weave my name into the history of the Hatbox Project, and consistently pricking my fingers, I run into Mimi Pixel and Tattetta Tizwaz in the House of Angles, shapely thimbles to the cause. Having seen her delicious illustrations (one of a Tunnock’s Teacake, no less) in her own mechanical journal, the time seems ripe to ask Tatty if she will consider creating some tailored to sit beside my words. The challenge is accepted and my day ends, somewhat unusually, more decisively than it began.