Hello Rubble Clubbers and your rocky little friends, and welcome to the Stone Quarry of Undergrowby. I have set up a nice warm, welcoming sand-pit for visiting pet rocks on the mantlepiece today, so if you please, place your own little friends in the sand next to the pet rocks of their choice and then your hands will be free to help yourselves to the buffet. While they have a good old sand-bathing session, we have your old favourites, rock cakes and gravel tea, and a little extra treat, gritty baps for you to toast on the fire for extra crispiness. The fire is glowing, ready for you. Get comfy and watch the pet rocks mingling on the mantlepiece. It's heavenly, isn't it? Home from home.
Well, the White Mist finally descended this week. It started at the weekend and lasted for three or four days. The last of the White Mist gifts were exchanged in the final hugging festivities and then the Belly-breathing Ceremony began. (The White Mist, as you probably know, contains all the vital heavenly essences needed to help us through the winter, so only a fool would not take a good bellyful of it.) Last minute preparations are then made for the big shut-down. Fuel supplies, roots and water are brought indoors. Parlour games and the Undergrowby Gnewspaper are placed in a handy spot next to the bed cupboard in case of wakefulness and the cocoons are brought out.
The entire population of Growbies are now, as I speak, tightly wrapped in their winter cocoons and Undergrowby has officially gone to sleep for the winter. All except for me. I just pretend to go to sleep. It's my guilty secret and I will now share it with you, Rubble Clubbers. Please keep it in confidence.
Ever since I inherited the Dumpling family secret, (the pet rock-making magic), I have been a fitful sleeper. In fact I hardly sleep at all, which is a shamefully weak thing for a Growby to confess. In Undergrowby, extreme winter sleeping is considered a prize-winning virtue. Endurance sleeping is the only winter sport Growbies will even consider. You know me, Rubblers, I like my competitions, and would dearly love to compete in the sleeping competitions, but there is no point even entering unless I can be the outright winner, as I used to be in my youth.
When the trouble first started I sought help from Doc Leaf, but he can do nothing for it except to recommend that I go easy on the rock cakes and gravel tea, but what kind of nonsense is that? Does he want me to starve? No, I am resigned to be without hope and completely on my own(except for the pets, and now your good selves) with my secret. In between little cocoon naps in the bed cupboard next to my snoring husband, Malcolm, I am doomed to roam the lanes of Undergrowby alone till spring, checking up on this and that, unnoticed by anyone. Since we moved to Blackpool, human activity is all around us, so the lanes are not entirely empty now. There is still much for me to see and do.
Most of the humans have disappeared for the winter (no doubt they are at home asleep in their bed cupboards hoping to win their own sleeping competitions). The pigeons are still waddling around the promenade eating chips, I notice, and there are a few human families strolling dreamily along the beautiful Blackpool promenade, kindly sharing their chips with the pigeons as they search for the Magic Wand Factory Shop. It is a secret shop tucked tantalisingly away at the end of Dickson Road, far away from the town centre and only the fittest and most magical of the humans will ever find it, which will be a great disappointment to many.
I now have a news report for you. Last night, the whole town had a shock! Some wicked, rowdy humans lit a bonfire and without notice, set off a banging, crashing firework display. Just because they are hopeless sleepers, like myself, (and obviously not taking part in the sleeping competitions), does not give them the right to spoil others' chances, does it?
I was already awake of course, but I blew out my candle and jumped into my cocoon, pretending I was asleep in case anyone should call round to blame me for the noise(they know how I love a bonfire and a firework display). Indeed, I just wish I had been warned about it in advance, because the rockies love a bonfire too, and they would have been delighted to watch the fireworks, especially now since the Blackpool Illuminations have been switched off in polite respect for for the long winter sleep.
All in all, it was a very frustrating time and has left me in a bad temper. Those pigeons, my so-called friends, might have notified me. It's at times like this that you find out who your friends really are! I bet they were all there themselves, pecking round at all that bonfire food! Rubblers, if you hear of any bonfire parties going on through the winter, please send me, your friend, an invitation, but do not invite the pigeons!
Now, on to business. I know what your chief concerns will be at the moment, Rubble Clubbers. Now that the Blackpool Illuminations have been switched off, how can you inspire your pet rocks with the will to live and survive their most hated season, winter. Winter hobbies are the solution, Rubblers, and preferably really boring ones, boring enough to send them to sleep over and over again. I Spy is one of my favourites. As I am the only one who can speak, it is always my turn, and guess which letter is my favourite? Yes that's right,... R. The rockies love it, because they always guess the answer, and they know I know they know. Then I pretend to hear someone answer, and I clap and present someone with a prize (a pat on the head).
Another favourite pet rock hobby is reading. I read and they listen. I read them the Undergrowby Gnews over and over again. It's always a winner. Cooking is another one. I cook and they watch. Dried root soup is the traditional winter dish in Undergrowby, but now we are in Blackpool, I may bring back a few more exciting ingredients for the cookery game from the bins behind the hotels. Potato peelings and eggshells are some of the delicacies I have learned to select. They give the dried root soup that extra crunchy, rocky, lumpy texture we in the Stone Quarry know and love. Pet rocks love to paddle in it.
Sometimes the rockies are extra-irritable on windy days in winter, much like myself. I can tell because they start to rattle in the draught. Then I set up the draughts board and line them up in teams of light and dark to play off against each other. It wears them out nicely,... and that is why a draughts board is called a draughts board of course. It was originally invented in Undergrowby as a distracting pet rock winter hobby at times of high wind.
If you come up with any new winter sports for your pet rocks, please share them with the other Rubble Club members. (Post me a comment if you are clever enough to work out how).There will be a fabulous prize for the best one.
I will leave you with that job while I wander down to the Wandmaker's Forest to see if Wanderella Windmeddler has already shut up shop for the winter. She usually leaves a few dozen free magic wands outside for desperate winter visitors to choose from, and I like to take my pick first. I never shop there at any other time because we don't get on very well, as you know. She's such a copycat. When she heard about my laptop she had to have one, and now, when she has a made a weekend web in cyberspace and is receiviing regular visitors, she just goes to sleep and leaves them to cater for themselves. It's selfish! I'm going to see if there is a queue outside and if there is I will tell them to go home for the winter.
So I will leave you now, Rubble Clubbers, and I will be back next Friday, depend upon it. They don't call me Wanderella! Until we meet again. I remain your irritated little friend and devoted chairman, Madge Dumpling.
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