Milly Molly Mandy’s thatched cottage village, Catherine Earnshaw’s wild Yorkshire moors, Elizabeth Bennet’s pretty Hampshire countryside; I wanted to see them all.

I wanted to watch daffodils and crocuses poke their delicate heads out at the warmth of spring and see if there really were fetes on the village greens.

I wanted to wander Dickens’ London, Wordsworth’s Lake District and du Maurier’s Cornwall, sip cider in Devon, eat toffee apples on Guy Fawkes’ night and see foxes and badgers.

My England came from descriptions in favourite books, childhood memories from “Treasure” magazine, a fascination with English history, and the memories of my mother who had visited 30 years before.  It was a mish mash of the past, the present, the fictional and the factual with a dash of daydreaming.  I couldn’t wait to get there and was sure I’d love it.

I arrived in London in autumn and the next day skipped through piles of leaves, crunching them underfoot as a squirrel scampered up a tree.    The cold air hinting at snow and the possibility of a white Christmas made me snuggle into my coat and scarf.  Nearby a red double decker bus pulled up at a stop, the turbaned conductor standing on the back steps.  I hurried to catch it and he stood aside to let me on.  As his machine whirred and printed my ticket I thought how perfect it all was.

I stayed for two years and never swayed from this view.  I’ve returned several times and with each visit I feel the same thrill of arrival.  In London I wander the rows of Victorian villas of Mary Poppins and Sara Crewe.   I drive country lanes edged with hedgerows and stay in villages and towns ripe for exploration.  I visit all the tourist sites, stop to read every blue historic plaque and revel in the centuries of history.

England’s magic has never dimmed.  The crowds, the traffic, the weather – none of that worries me.  For beneath it all is my England, the one I read, heard and dreamed about on the other side of the world all those years ago.  The England which felt so familiar when I first arrived and which is there just for me.  And whether it’s in a bunch of daffodils waving in a field, a pink Suffolk thatched cottage on a summer’s afternoon or the Art Deco tiles of a London Underground station I always find it.