Millie French: 2015

This time of the year is always Alice-themed these days. Or so it seems, anyway.

After weeks of letting it tug vaguely at the corners of my mental to-do list, I've gone ahead and booked tickets for Alice's Adventures Underground, interactive* performance extraordinaire. (I won't use the other 'i' word, because everyone hates it and you know it.) The event isn't until tomorrow, and already I've spent days obsessing over small details - does the 'Black/Red' dress code mean red and black? Red or black? What if I change my mind and decide I want to side with another suit? Should I Eat it? Drink it? Which one will make me big, which one small? What do I want? - until I thought I was going mad. And then I thought maybe that was the point.

I never thought I liked Alice. Having been decidedly unimpressed by the Disney cartoon, cat-less smile aside, I shoved the memory of it to the back of my mind as a child, to only take it out of a dusty brain drawer when Disney's shiny-and-new live remake forced me to. I was equally unimpressed. But I had to admit, something about the Crazy-circus, Creepy-clown concept of it all appealed to me. I mulled it over and had to concede - Alice belongs to the same, dreamy-yet-terrifying-if-you-think-like-really-think-about-it category as Peter Pan.

Once I realised that, I was hooked (no pun intended).

And so last year, I decided my birthday would be Wonderland-themed.

Quite conveniently, Archway with Words festival decided to hold an Alice in Wonderland Fancy Dress Day on that very date, complete with hat-making and flamingo croquet.