Blake keeps popping up.  The Royal Parks have commissioned Will Davies to cut a quote from one of William Blake’s poems which mentions Primrose Hill.  He was carving it into the new York stone edging at the Hill’s summit when I took my regular walk up there. Maybe a little fed up with people asking him what he was doing?

Last month to my first meeting of the Blake Society, held on the first floor of the Spaniards Inn in Hampstead, London.  An appropriate venue as the pub has at least two literary associations – with Dickens and Keats.  Fading light in the panelled room. The Inn claims it was once that of the highwayman Dick Turpin – a handy corner for a highwayman,  overlooking the narrowing road and the Heath beyond.

Bearded Professor Jim Bogan of Missouri University, South Kensington was already there, ready to tell a small group of us about poet and visionary William Blake’s influence on his life. A good influence I’d say.  Jim often sang one of Blake’s songs as he cycled, and at the end of the evening, as the light disappeared, he sang one of the Songs of Innocence, or it might have been Experience. Very moving.  Much to learn about this strange and wonderful Londoner’s life.

Having drawn the Great Wall of China for the Comic Strip History of the World, I wanted to see the real thing.  One free morning in Beijing before I left for London – but the cold and foggy conditions were not ideal for Wall-viewing.  Hadn’t experienced weather like this since my childhood in the Midlands.  It was the sort of fog which made your eyes feel gritty, and visibility was not good.  A hire car and driver took four of us to the Wall at Mutianyu, 90km north-east of the city. The young Norwegian writer behind me looked as if she was going to throw up any second.  She did, later, but luckily not while I was present.

There was a bactrian and ice and some seedy looking stalls.  We took a cable car and off we went, whooshing up through the icy fog.  I love fairground rides so this was rather fun. The Norwegian girl looked very, very white.

 This section of Wall was built in the 14C but heavily renovated in the 1980s.  Occasionally guard towers loomed out of the freezing mist, in one of which lurked a man selling a few Snickers bars out of a cardboard box.  We didn’t stay long.  I have no idea how high up we were, but I began to feel breathless, and cross that all my photos were rubbish.  After our descent got cussed by Mongolian trader.

She was selling vastly overpriced knick-knacks and mistook my actually not really wanting to buy anything for Western greed and cunning, so I got a bargain (I think).

The Bookworm Festival included a visit to a school run by the Migrant Children’s Foundation for children whose parents have been drawn from the countryside to work in China’s cities.  A car picked us up from the Opposite House and drove us through thick smog to a ‘village’ near the sixth ring road.  The first ring is theoretically round the Forbidden City – which is also the centre of the universe of course.

We drove past a vast construction looming out of the fog … the deserted Happy Valley amusement park, passing endless rows of leafless trees like upturned brooms – planted before the Olympics to filter out the choking red dust from the Gobi before it reached the city.  Our driver got lost.  There were no road signs but many rubbish heaps and choked canals.  Someone was selling large, bright blue eggs outside some run-down industrial units by the side of the rutted road.  A man was mending bicycles.

Bookworm had asked a group of us to tell the children a story using three items/elements particular to our country of origin.  I chose a cheese sandwich, an umbrella and the Queen of England who had a crown for every occasion, including one for watching TV, bathtime etc.  Who knows, it might be true.

The children and I did some warm-up drawings together, using a blackboard and chalk. The classroom was very cold … China turns off its heating on March 15th, and it comes on again on November 15th.

I’d bought some crowns from my local dressing-up shop – the class took turns being decadent Royals.  My young interpreter William was delightful, and we all got the giggles from time to time, especially when William and the children tried to teach me the Chinese word for crown, which I’d pronounced ‘cucumber’ apparently.

I asked the children to draw a comic strip story about what they would do if they woke up one morning and could do something completely different.  Many of them said they’d like to see their parents.

Arrived tired and cold in Beijing south station, realising too late I should have queried my festival contact’s message that she would meet me ‘at the exit’, as of course the station is vast and has many exits, and my phone wasn’t working.  Somehow we managed to link up at one of the McDonalds in the station, and set off by taxi to the Opposite House,  my HQ whilst taking part in the Bookworm Festival.  Architect Kengo Kuma’s emerald green glass hotel was full of delights … rainwater power-showers, super-helpful and attentive staff, a pillow menu, little presents with Post-It messages attached, snowy slippers by my huge bed every evening …

Great to see dinosaurs at breakfast, especially as I’d brought some with me for the children’s drawing workshops … (from The Comic Strip Book of Dinosaurs by Kindberg/Turner)

Workshops and talks at international schools for the next few days … and eventually I managed to cross a Beijing main road without flinching.  Initial strategy involved inserting myself into a crowd of pedestrian Beijingers and hoping for the best. En route to the Bookworm’s bookshop/cafe/performance space, noticed what looked like a playground of brightly coloured but sophisticated apparatus.

It was snowy, but it didn’t deter one old man from using the ‘playground’.  With a grimace, he mimed bad knees – this was an exercise park for the elderly.  I had a go on the hip-swiveller – great fun!  Beijing was cold, though it had been sunny.  ”There’s always good weather when the National Congress meets,” explained an American living in Beijing later, “They seed the clouds.”

Stayed at the Nanlin Hotel, where a scarlet skirted lady sang at a grand piano in the foyer, fairy lights twinkled, waterfalls delicately plashed and a new mat in the lift every morning told me what day it was.  Chinese generally seem very fond of grotesque shaped rocks as well as fairy lights etc.

Workshop the next day at Suzhou’s Bookworm bookshop which doesn’t actually sell books because of Chinese red tape, but you can ‘borrow’ them for a fee.  Only one child turned up as event rather foolishly timetabled during the school week, but several adults had fun.  Ex-pats gather here for chatting and drinking sessions.

The first spring sunshine in Suzhou coincided with my visit.  Washing appeared everywhere, hung out to dry.  Bjorn (festival organiser) and Butler took me on a tricycle tour of the town. We ate chive and black sauce pancakes from a street stall, drank tea in delicate cups by the canalside and had a boatride up and down the canal.  Our amiable boatman sang us many versed Suzhou songs.

Visited one of Suzhou’s many famous gardens, that of the Master of the Nets, built for a retired official in the 12C who decided to be a fisherman, but possibly of rather an upmarket kind with plenty of time on his hands.

Walked through rooms for viewing pine trees in winter and the moon three times (in the sky, reflected in water and in a mirror) and other delights.  I only had a couple of days in Suzhou before heading north again to Beijing, this time on the Shanghai-Beijing CRH bullet train which stops briefly at Suzhou’s shiny new station north of the city.  Super-efficient station staff, but did NOT like the squat loos.