Come and play at my house; it's up the hill beside the sweet shop. Watch out for the gate! There's a spring thing to make it snap shut so the baby downstairs can't get out onto the road. That's our door with the name painted on the glass above. Granny said that every house should have a name, even if it is only a flat; so we called it 'Briardene'. That's the name of a pub Daddy and Mummy used to go to when they went to live in Lincolnshire during the war. Granny thinks it's a lovely name. But mustn't to tell her where it comes from.

We've to leave our shoes here at the bottom of the stairs so we don't wear out the carpet. It's a beautiful carpet, don't you think? All those birds. That's my favourite, the green one with the golden breast and the long, long tail. It comes at exactly the same place on every other step so it always looks like it's perching on the stair rod. There's seventeen steps to get to the top. Daddy says we live on top of the world and Mummy calls her bedroom 'my blue heaven' cause everything in there is blue. See, rug, curtains, quilt - all blue.

This is my room. We only just got the bed in; Daddy had to take all the screws out to get it in through the door and then put it all together again so it would fit under the window and Mummy made the quilt out of all the best bits in her sewing scrap box. The pink flowery squares come from a dress I had when I was a baby but I don't remember it, and the shiny ones were left over when she made her ball gown. Isn't it beautiful? Like Cinderella; that's my favourite story. I've got lots of books. I specially like this one with poems 'cause they're short so I can remember the words and read them to myself. And the pictures are so pretty. And this is Pinky; he's my pet. We can't have a real dog in a flat so Jessie brought Pinky to keep me company. You probably think he's called Pinky because he's pink but it's much more clever than that, you see, because Jessie is a Sister at the hospital and Sisters' uniforms aren't blue like the ordinary nurses; they wear pink, so they're called Pinkies. So, you see, my pink dog's Pinkie 'cause he's pink, and because it was a Pinkie who gave him to me. No, she's not my auntie, just someone who comes to visit sometimes: I don't know why she comes but I do know she's important because when she's here we always go in the lounge, even if it isn't Sunday.

This is the lounge. You can peep in. All Mummy's best treasures are in here and the curtains have to stay shut so they won't fade with the sun. My best treasure's in the living room.

Mummy, Mummy, will you get my Caroline plate down off the dresser so I can show Avril. Did you ever see anything so gorgeous? When we went to tea at Daddy's Auntie Ella's there were scones on this plate and you could only see little bits of the picture in between. I had to eat lots and lots of scones to get to see the whole picture and Auntie Ella said, since I liked the plate so much, I could have it to keep. I think that lady in the picture is the most beautiful lady in the whole wide world. See how the yellow ribbons on her bonnet match her dress. My frocks never stand out all round like that, do yours? Mummy says you need a special petticoat called a Caroline with big metal hoops underneath which can't be very comfortable, but you'd never know that to look at her. And her garden's wonderful isn't it? All those flowers. Come and I'll show you my garden.

Watch the step down into the kitchen, it's very high. Now, hold that chair steady so I can climb up and reach the door knob. It's all right, to go out in our socks because there's a veranda and we can look down over the rail. The people downstairs have the garden on that side of the path and we have this side. Daddy has it all over to vegetables and fruit but the bit next the hedge is mine for growing flowers in. The snowdrops are all finished now and I'm waiting for daffodils to come out. Then Daddy says we can plant nasty-mummy-things. He says that's a silly name because they're not really nasty and in summer they'll climb up cover the hedge with bright orange flowers.

Oh, that's Mummy calling us for tea. Maybe she'll let us have lemonade since you're here, and there's chocolate cake left over from Sunday.

Tomorrow, can I come to your house?