Louise Belcher with a blue rose

You will not believe the morning we have had at the Dover terminal, or rather in the queue before it, where the coach sat for two hours while a man in an orange waistcoat decided whether our bags were a threat to the nation. Our Nessa wore the pink bunny-ear hat she bought at the Blackpool stall and has not taken off since August. She spent the whole wait on the verge, pointing at the sky as though she had personally summoned the grey heaps of cloud above us. Every time the wind shifted them she announced that they were going to rain on the Frenchmen, and she was rather pleased with the sound of it.

When we reached the booth, the officer leaned down to the window and asked the usual questions. Nessa answered every one before I could open my mouth. Purpose of visit? To see the sea and eat a chip that wasn't soggy. Anything to declare? Her opinion of the coach driver, which she said was on the back of her hand in biro. He did not smile, but his moustache twitched, and I have decided that counts as a yes.

The real trouble came at the stamp. Nessa had drawn a blue rose on the back of the landing card while we waited, petals tipped with orange and a jagged green leaf either side, and she insisted the officer look at it before he processed anything. He looked. Then he turned the card over, pressed his stamp hard against the rose, and said, very solemnly, that she was now cleared to enter. She has not stopped talking about it since.

I am writing from the ferry lounge with a cup of tea that tastes of the sea. Nessa is asleep against my arm, bunny ears flopped over one eye, one finger still pointing at the gulls. Tell Dad the rose is in the scrapbook already.

Love, Joan