To fly between worlds, between Sanguinaria and here, to deposit on my doorstep a deep red rose, still slightly tacky where the blood hasn't yet dried - for me to send back a white rose in return - Fairtrade from Waitrose - is quite an undertaking. I'm not quite sure how I have managed it. Only a few days ago, a moon-month exactly since I came back here, I was wandering in the garden in the moonlight and a bat descended, the rose was there. The next night the bat came and picked up the rose I had bought from Waitrose. When the flittering creature took hold of it, the bloom flushed pink, then deeper and deeper red, and then vanished altogether.
I have a cold now, but it's worth it.

Oh, Rudolf! I loved you so much, yet I had my Duty. I was married to Bloodlouse, after all, and had to spend every day in his arms, in an eight-foot wide coffin, to embrace him, passionately, on the scarlet sheets - but every time my thoughts turned to the stalwart Rudolf, captain of my guard. Then one day, Bloodlouse looked at me and withdrew his fangs in the very act of sinking them into my throat. 'You little cheat, Chernya!' he snarled.

I knew then that the moment had come. It took a lot of planning, a secret visit to the Blood Bank, bribes - but one evening he didn't appear to the pre-breakfast gathering. He was nowhere to be found. (He was, in fact, being held by vampires I had suborned, in a tower twenty miles away from our castle).

Now of course his throne could not remain empty, that would have been against the Law. And though Rudolf was far better-looking than my royal spouse Bloodlouse, it's amazing what a lot of makeup can do. So he played the part of King. I stood beside him, I held his hand, he raised mine to his lips and gently bit my wrist-vein -and one morning he picked up the double-edged sword that lay between us in the wide coffin and tossed it out. The next minute we were in each others's arms. He fanged me. The exstasy of that moment is beyond description. I felt myself sailing away on bat-wings of rapture and then -

damn, there's the door. My John Lewis delivery. I shall post again, later.

I have been silent for a long while, I know. My mind has been wrapped in cobwebs. I shall only sketch in the details of my life since my last post – my husband had a heart attack and we were rushed to hospital in an ambulance – my daughters and my grandson came to visit – Jehovah’s witnesses came to the door and the dog leaped up at them – I lost my Internet connection for five minutes last night and also, at twenty past midnight, a screech owl flew over the house, heading northwards.

But at odd moments – queuing for the checkout in Waitrose – driving round the noisy hell of the hospital carpark, desperate for someone to leave – and also when I saw a dribble of blood on my husband’s face from a cut suddenly reluctant, because of the blood-thinning medicines, to clot as rapidly as it once did – visions of Sanguinaria have flashed back at me. And when I walk round the supermarket I find my trolley fills up with tomatoes, red peppers, and pomegranates, almost without my volition. I have to control myself to avoid cooking every meal with tomato sauce.

I have space now, a few minutes while my recovering husband sorts photographs on his laptop upstairs, to creep furtively to the computer and compile a few notes of my memories for the eyes only of those who may find their way to this site (and exit, gibbering maybe, with their keyboard jumbled forever into something not in the least resembling querty.)

The chief sociological problem for vampires living in an impregnable castle, whether or not designed by Lutyens, is that there is only room for a limited amount of vampires in one country. Sanguinaria is not very large, just big enough for vampires to overfly and return comfortably before dawn spreads its cheerful and horrid fingers over a land that wakes to another twelve – or in summer rather more – hours of freedom from the attentions of my ilk. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the inevitable result of the vampire’s bite is to create new vampires. One does not need much grasp of arithmetic (not to mention geometry, quantum mechanics, advanced calculus and primitive algebra) to realise that the livelihood of Sanguinaria’s vampires is constantly in danger of becoming unsustainable. We dealt with this by means of severe population control.

As a matter of routine, a certain number of my lesser subjects were issued with peaked caps and dark red uniforms and sent to patrol the boundaries, armed with stun-crossbows. If any foreign vampires attempted to enter our airspace they were stunned and fell to earth. If they failed to recover consciousness before dawn, they were usually found by local stakeholders and dealt with in the traditional manner. Otherwise they limped away, having been, we trusted, deterred from further incursions.

However, this policy totally failed to address the issue of our own dinners, which stimulated in a highly undesirable manner the numbers of undead on our territory. For this reason, after both victim and vampire had fallen into a daze of satiation, it was the job of lower-ranking vampires to escort their victim, now a vampire, to the borders forthwith. For myself (Queen Chernya,) and my auntie Queen Liza, my second-cousin-once-removed King Albert, and my consort King Bloodlouse, we sallied forth with attendants who would do the expatriation for us. Monarchs should do as little as possible for themselves – the less they do, the more their grateful subjects are likely to venerate, serve, and subsidise them.

I must insist that there was no inhumanity in this policy. If families were split up it was a necessary action for the good of our caste. Besides, it was clearly our duty to protect the local population from their relatives once our teeth had sunk into them and drunk their blood – or tomato juice.