How many of us remember our school days, when we dipped our toes into the fascinating world of Greek and Roman myths – and then promptly forgot them whenwe donned our high-heels and stepped out into the real world?

I certainly had until I visited Holland again in 2010. I first visited in the 1960s with my sister, when it was a quiet almost sleepy place (see barbaraspencerauthor.blogspot.com) but this time my granddaughter was with me. And the reason for our visit, to celebrate the publication of the thriller Running. She wanted to see everything; canals, walkways, bridges, trams, the Anne Frank House, the Koekenhoff … everything. Wandering around one of their many museums I was struck by images of Leda and the Swan and on returning to the hotel promptly looked up the legend of Zeus who descended to earth as a swan in order…