Meeting of the Rubble Club 19th September 2008

Hello, Rubble Clubbers. Hello little rockies, this is Madge Dumpling here talking to you from the Stone Quarry of Undergrowby where the world's most devoted pet rock fanciers meet every Friday, learn from my endless store of pet rock keeping wisdom and partake of my rockelicious buffet. Those of you who have only come for the rock cakes, help yourselves! This week the rock cakes are enriched with something rather special....fish tank gravel.
Granny Gray, on my instructions, has set up an illuminated fish tank on the counter of the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, to entertain our vast collecton of pet rocks, who are positioned directly opposite to it. I got the idea because I see these brightly-lit fish tanks wherever I go, and often thought how much the pet rocks would love one to amuse them. There is one across the road in the delightful Italian Kitchen, and THREE in the bar lounge of the cosy Belvedere hotel on the Promenade at Gynn Square, where I go to relax and watch the sun go down from the sun lounge windowsill after a busy day. I instructed Granny Gray to get me and the rockies some tiny gnome-sized fish to entertain us. Granny Gray wrote a list of requirements to my exact specifications and sent Grandad Gray off on his bike and trailer(for the tank, gravel, plants, fish and of course me and my most well-behaved pet rocks) to find it all.
I so much like to watch the fish through the side of the tank that I have become quite fixated with it, so much so that it has been getting in the way of my work. Who knows how many rock specimens will have been washed ashore only to be washed right back out again because I have not been there to catch them. The lesson in this for you, Rubble Clubbers, is this...do not get yourselves a fish tank. Fish tanks and pet rock handling do not go hand in hand well unless you have no interest in the fish at all, and are keeping the tank purely for the entertainment of your rockies while you are out at work, or school, or wherever. It took a nasty, shocking turn of events to teach me that this was the case, and I daresay you will want to hear all about it.
Well, the fish had no sooner arrived in the tank than they started to get romantic with each other and lay their eggs all over the plants. You know me, Rubble Clubbers, ever the mother hen and hatching enthusiast, I decided it was up to me to watch over the eggs since the fish were taking no notice of them at all. I lit a bonfire by the tank, sang my hatching song and clapped the Dumpling rhythm for them for two whole days before they could resist no more and decided to hatch out. It was a spectacular success for the Dumpling magic because about forty of them hatched and attached themselves to the tank wall next to my bonfire. If they could have jumped into my arms, they would have done, I knew. I pretended to stroke them through the glass, but I think it only made matters worse. They stared at me in horror as if I were an alien, which indeed, to them, I was. It was heart-breaking to see them, abandoned by their callous parents, their eyes all goggly and expressionless, unlike the my pet rocks , who are mostly born with love and happiness in their eyes.
A day later, thanks to my devotion, they started to swim freely at the top of the water. I got my longest ladder, climbed to the top of the tank, lifted the cover and sang to them to cheer them on. Meanwhile, the pet rocks were being ignored and neglected and (all credit to them, most of them took it in their stride), accepted their shabby plight and determined to think positively as ever. It's their nature, after all. Most of them, in fact, were greatly entertained by the fishes' antics. One of the Grumpy pet rocks, born in a rainstorm several weeks ago and still not adopted by anyone,(shame on you, Rubble Clubbers!) in a fit of jealousy and depression threw himself up in the air and plopped down into the tank, suicidal as can be. He is still there at the bottom of the tank, scowling at everyone who stops to admire the shoal of baby fish. If he thinks I am going to swim down and rescue him he is wrong!
Still, it did tweak my conscience and bring me to my senses somewhat, and reminded me that I am the Quarrymistress and not the Fishwoman of Undergrowby, and I have work to do. I have therefore left Granny Gray in charge of the baby fish from now on. They might be orphaned and abandoned by their parents but they should count themselves lucky. At least they have Granny Gray, and I shall be keeping a sharp eye on her performance, as always. And let's face it, if it were not for my Dumpling hatching expertise they might never even have been born. Not many would have known exactly what to do, like me.
For those of you who might be wondering how I went on at the Winter Gardens last week, I will give a short report. The King did not show up. Not even a princess. The palace was rather lovely but I could find no gardens, not even a pebble, a worm or a twig. There were no rock specimen stalls to be found but the buffet was lovely. There were cakes topped with a kind of foam, which I suspect may have been gathered from the sea scum that drifts in with the tide. (An inspired idea, which I have stolen to adorn today's batch of fish tank gravel-enriched rock cakes. Enjoy!) There were lots of people milling around in there, but they were so busy looking in vain for the king, like myself, that hardly anyone adopted any pet rocks. So perhaps it was a misguided adventure, not to be repeated. I have instructed Granny Gray to stay put in the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road in future, and stop trying to rise above her station.
With that, I will be on with my backlog of work. I will try not to be distracted in future. Till next week, I remain your devoted chairman and growing-ever-wiser little friend, Madge Dumpling.