Lunchtime read: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Now Alice has managed to get away from the confines of the corridor she fell into there are more weird characters and perceptions of reality are challenged. Throughout it all Alice remains stoical and tries to be polite and clear despite her continually changing size.

Highlights from chapters five and six

* The next encounter is with a caterpillar smoking a hookah who asks Alice who she is and where she has come from – both questions that she struggles to answer but when the caterpillar hears that she wants to grow in size he disappears telling her over his shoulder that the mushroom can make her shrink or grow

* After some trial and error Alice manages to get to the right size to be able to approach a four foot high house that has a fish footman outside who is meant to be informing the duchess who lives inside that she has been invited to play croquet with the queen

* Alice barges inside to find the duchess sitting in the kitchen with the cook throwing saucepans and all manner of things at her while the duchess cradles a howling baby which she eventually hands over to Alice

* Alice cradles the baby that finally turns into a pig and she is left with the Cheshire Cat, who keeps disappearing, and tells her she has a choice of visiting the hare or the hatter, both of which are mad

More tomorrow…