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dear aunty caro,

8 hours: an hour for each year I have been alive, but the anticipation makes the train journey feel worthwhile. Daddy has given Harry and me little imitation leather autograph books, so that we can collect autographs from the other passengers. Mine is black - I always make sure I get the best colour when we are given matching presents. The pages in both are in different pastel shades with gold edges, and the cover clops open and shut in a satisfying way. Daddy explains the difference between "signature" and "autograph" to us, and we pinball down the aisles in different directions. I get signatures from Gracie Fields and Marilyn Monroe, two laughing old ladies.

One young man writes, "Come back in ten years - Derrick". Later, Daddy explains the implication: in 10 years I will be 18, and legally old enough to go out with the man. I worry/hope that he might somehow track me down one day, but comfort myself with the thought that his grooming, his curly writing and the twee spelling of his name are suspiciously gay. Weeks later, there is a minor house fire on our street and I get a really good autograph: "Bob Simpson - Fireman".

On a visit to Cornwall, our anticipation always came to a head when *you* ran down the lane calling "Yippee!", all dressed in crayon sun and sand colours.

My boyfriend at the time called his parents by their first names and I thought it terribly grown-up. I couldn't bring myself to do this, but for a while I did occasionally drop "Uncle" or "Aunty". However, Mummy always told us to make sure we always called you "Aunty" because you were so proud of us. That made us feel proud, too, but slightly confused as to how we had earned your favour. What did make me feel grown-up was when the usually intimidating Peter* gave me a microscope, and spent time showing me how to use it. I still have it, though I smashed a lot of the glass plates by zooming in (on spit, hair, fabric, algae, a nit) too far.

Sitting sidesaddle on the loo, looking out of the bathroom window. The window is set low down, raising my awareness of the fact that my trousers are half-mast around my ankles. Outside, the sky is dove-coloured, the trees fidget and the sea is busy with boats. It feels reassuring, like opening the back of a clock and watching the cogs turn, or hearing your mum and dad chatting through the bedroom floor late at night. I remember once seeing a pair of toothbrushes with red and blue nude ladies' bodies for handles, standing to attention on a ledge at the other end of the room. I thought them beautifully shameless and awesomely exotic artefacts. The blue basin fills with luxuriously soft water, which I imagined was exclusive to your house. Back at home, my body squeaks clean and the tea is crunchy with limescale. Here, I glide and settle like a breast feather on a breeze. Other luxuries: dream meals such as beef stew and dumplings, Marmite on toast with real butter, and Peanuts pillowcases at bedtime.

The ogre of the house is Toby. An unhinged yeti friend who shouts and bounds, and attacks Harry in random and bizarre ways: "Toby tried to do the conga with me again". I know what Toby is trying to do, and Harry's oblivious terror is infectious but I do feel slightly offended by the thought that that Toby finds him prettier than me.

The lawn is our stage and our sports ground, and the land slopes away from it down to the road, the woods and the sea. We feel proud and vital, playing raised up on top of a hill, but we must watch out for poo. If you shine a strong torch into the trees at night, you can make the birds stutter into a confused dawn chorus.

Picture books: the smell of Snoopy, the world of Orlando. I used to write myself little notes and hide them in the spine of "Happiness Is A Warm Puppy", because I thought a lot about time travel and felt I was communicating with the future. The notes said things like "Do you still think about s-e-x?" (I was only 10 and worried that I was a pervert, imagining a primmer, 11 year old me tearing up the note in disgust) and "The garlic bread in the Turk's Head is excellent". It was at your house where I thought for a long time that I had seen real time travel. I walked into the living room and the news was on the TV. "Watch this," you said. You pointed the remote and the image sped up and began to flicker. It ran forwards and into the next programme. I was amazed. You had in your hand a tool which could show programmes that weren't on yet - if you waited long enough, you could watch next week's news, or even next year's. I was in awe of this, and thought of "The Time Machine", and marvelled at your nonchalance.

You bought me "Little Miss Naughty" after a day out and an ice cream (my birthday?). In the story, Mr Small is turned invisible so that he can tweak Little Miss Naughty's nose whenever she's naughty. She ends up a nervous wreck, and a shadow of her former, brighter self. After we read the story, you teased me by tweaking my nose, and I was terrified because I had vague ideas of being plagued by a little invisible imp, and having all my naughtiness die, and becoming a different person. That's why I hid behind the sofa, but to this day I worry that I offended you.

The sound of the foghorn is ominous yet comforting, like an old frog god watching over us as we go to sleep.

You'll remember me watching you make up, aping in miniature the silent-movie grimaces I now use myself when applying mascara or lipstick. When you take your makeup off, the tip of your nose is pink and you have little-girl eyes, and that used to make me think about the photos that Granny had of you when you were my age. Mummy was my natural paradigm of feminine beauty, but I loved watching you transform into a tigerlily queen.

Peter drives dangerously. I wonder why Mummy doesn't ask him not to; I get the impression it's for the same reason that she doesn't bother asking Toby not to do the conga with Harry. I read one of my old diaries recently, and there's an entry I wrote in Cornwall when I was 14. Harry and I fiercely disapproved of dope, and we got cross when you and Peter encouraged them to smoke. I expressed my feelings one evening, and later wrote in my diary, with worldly cynicism, "Peter started waffling about doing what you want so long as you're not hurting anybody". When I think of Peter, I think of the heavy silver bracelet warming on his wrist, and his voice like a lion in a picture book, compellingly prickly like the old cacti cousins in the bedroom which my little earthworm fingers found so irresistible. I always poked at these, and on going home day on the way to the car, poked them sadly into the spongy moss on the wall beside the stone steps, and thought about all the things I was going to miss.

When we went to Matt's parents' house I found "Happiness is a Warm Puppy" among his things in the loft, and brought it home so's I could write odd messages to my 40 year old self.

* Note to weblog reader: I wasn't to call Peter "Uncle" as he thought it soooo square.