Severe in grey, she held out her hand, papery white, red lumps deforming her knuckles. Her grasp was dry, her strict expression softening as she uttered a prayer for all earthbound sinners

Above us the water, as blue as her eyes, was capped with rigid white waves from where mermaids frolicked. A penguin nun emerged from a door set in the sea and bade us a pious welcome.

On entering a palace of pink coral we saw, above our heads, clowns dressed in shells, spinning and joking from ropes of seaweed.

Then we sat down on the backs of whales while sea horses served us tiny sausages wrapped in thin, succulent kelp. And as we ate, the Ring Mster appeared, thick whiskers. twitching.