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.