Travelling Ava wiggled her toes. She was sitting comfortably at the kitchen table, sipping sweet milky tea from her rainbow mug. Sweet, milky tea is her favourite drink in the world. Today was a good day for a walk. Really, any day is a good day for a walk, but today had a fizz in the air, and Ava couldn’t wait to leave the house.

Travelling Ava is an adventurer, explorer, and magical travelling doll. Ava has had lots of adventures and knows that it is best to be prepared. She takes her explorer bag wherever she goes. Ava finds that she has a lot of unexpected adventures; she can’t explain why this happens, but she knows that it’s best to pack some snacks. Her explorer bag is filled with random items that might come in handy, like a piece of string, paper clips, and a birthday balloon. I have no idea what she does with all this stuff or if it’s actually useful, but I’m not an adventurer.

Travelling Ava finished her tea, popped a pack of biscuits into her bag, checked she had everything she needed, and headed out the door. She had left her flask of tea on the kitchen bench. It doesn’t matter how prepared she thinks she is; there is always something she leaves behind. She is just too excited to get outdoors and start her walks. Travelling Ava loves walking; all the best adventures begin with a walk. You never know where you will end up.

One of Travelling Ava’s favourite places to walk is alongside the river. She loves this walk because it changes all the time, not just with the seasons but also with the tide. At low tide, an assortment of random objects reveals themselves, nestled in the mud. Ava would like to try mudlarking. It’s on her growing list of things to try.

Ava spotted a strange glowing light in the distance, and she decided to go investigate. As she reached the edge of the light, a fuzzy feeling of contentment filled her heart with joy. Suddenly, her surroundings changed. Ava was no longer on the path alongside the river; she had travelled somewhere new. The glowing light was gone; whatever had brought Ava to this place had disappeared.

Ava quickly decided that she couldn’t wait around for the glowing light to return. She is familiar enough with magical portals to know it could return in 5 minutes or in 5 weeks. There was no use standing around waiting for something to happen. She decided that the best thing to do was to go explore. Travelling Ava doesn’t have the patience to wait around for something to happen. She could try, but after 3 minutes of waiting, she would be bored, and the next thing she would do is realise that she had wandered off somewhere. She can’t help it. Her feet sometimes do their own thing; it takes a while for her brain to catch up. In a lot of ways, she just had no other choice than to be an adventurer and explorer.

Travelling Ava looked around her for clues to her new location. Her surroundings felt familiar. The sky is blue, the grass is green, the trees look magnificent and ancient, but very much like the trees at home. It smelled and sounded like the countryside. She was standing in the middle of a large field. From where she was standing, she couldn’t see the edges. She could see mountains in the distance, so tall they had snowy peaks.

Before picking a direction to walk, she rummaged through her explorer bag and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen. In case she needed to find her way back to this spot, Ava started making herself a little map of the landmarks that she could see. Luckily, the spot Travelling Ava arrived in the field had large, rough, towering stones. Before making a cross on the map, Ava reached out and touched the cool surface. She wondered to herself if the standing stones themselves were magical in some way. Maybe this is the Portal. Ava folded her small map and slipped it into her pocket. She couldn’t see a path across the field but kept walking. There wasn’t much logic to her choice of direction. She picked a direction and started walking, or maybe her feet picked the direction. The mountains were now behind her; the view of the mountains was impressive. Ava wondered how far away they were. Maybe she would be able to visit them one day.

As Travelling Ava trekked across the field, she checked her explorer bag and realised she had left her flask of tea on the kitchen bench. She was thirsty, and her little legs and feet had started to ache. Ava doesn’t like the feeling of being lost. It’s not that there is no way home; Ava just needs to do some exploring first. Ava is an explorer. She has determination, gumption, and an explorer bag full of things that might come in handy. She wished that it included her flask. As an explorer, Travelling Ava is never lost. She might not always have adventures that go to plan. But let’s be honest, if everything went to plan, could you call it an adventure? At least it was a nice sunny day. Just when she started to worry that she had picked the wrong direction to walk, Ava spotted a dry stone wall marking the edge of the field. To her left, the field sloped away from her so she couldn’t see where it ended. That didn’t matter, though; her pace quickened at the sight of the wall, and she now spotted a stile. Even better, she is an okay climber, but Ava can be a bit clumsy and doesn’t fancy clambering over the wall. There was nothing unusual about the road in her opinion. She looked left and right, and her heart skipped as she spotted her first sign, a bus stop. The sign looked a little old-fashioned. Old-fashioned signs always make Ava feel happy. She doesn’t know why. For some reason, she finds them reassuring, a connection through time.

Nobody was waiting at the bus stop, and Travelling Ava couldn’t see a timetable. Without a timetable, the last bus might have already gone past. Her tummy grumbled, and her feet were feeling tired. She only has little legs, and the trek across the field was a long walk even for an experienced adventurer like herself. She plopped herself down on the lush, cool grass. There wasn’t a shelter or a bench at this bus stop, and sometimes there is nothing else to do than sit down and have a little rest. Once again, it was her feet in charge. Ava rummaged through her explorer bag. She pulled out half a packet of chocolate digestives. Not her favourite biscuits, but a 3.5 out of 5 for travel snacks. It would be a 4, but on hot days like today, the chocolate melts, making them a little bit messy. Still tasted good though. She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. Something else that she had found tucked in her bag. She then pulled the folded map and pen out of her pocket, carefully adding the wall, the stile, and the bus stop before folding the map and placing it carefully in her bag.

She wasn’t sitting for long before she could hear the distant rumble of an engine. As the bus approached, she leaped up out of the grass and stuck her hand out, indicating to the bus driver that she wanted it to stop. Ava could see that it looked like an old bus, a classic. The old bus stop sign and a vintage bus ambling up the hill towards her suggested to Ava that she might have travelled back in time. Was that even possible?

The bus stopped, and Travelling Ava climbed aboard and purchased her ticket. There was something a bit unusual about the bus driver, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Ava chose an empty seat next to the window. She always picks a window seat. She needed a minute or two to gather her thoughts. This was not her first trip through a magical portal, but it was her first time getting stuck. Travelling Ava was slowly taking in her surroundings. She noticed the top hat first before she noticed the frog who was wearing it. He was sitting at the window seat on the other side of the bus. Travelling Ava looked at the other passengers before deciding that wherever the portal had brought her, it was perhaps the most magical place she had ever travelled to. This might be the start of her best adventure yet.

For my daydreamers, mischief-makers and restless souls. Welcome to the Isle of Neverwas. You are home.