Meeting of the Rubble Club, 4th January 2009

Hello Rubble Clubbers, this is Madge Dumpling speaking to you from Rubble Club H.Q., my delightfully rubble-strewn parlour here in the Stone Quarry of Undergrowby, which is in a secret spot somewhere deep underground in cyberspace to the rear of the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool. Congratulations to those of you bright enough to find the entrance, and I regret that I am arriving late to the meeting once again. As I suspected, you have been too polite to ransack my cupboards for the refreshments. You must be starving. Over there in that cupboard is a stone jar marked "Do not touch! Rubble Clubber's only!" Open the lid and get yourselves a nice crunchy rock cake each. I have just returned from a long journey and I may well fall asleep if I have one myself. They do have a way of sitting heavily on the stomach floor, don't they, and rooting you to the ground in a sleepy, blobby, speechless way. Yes I know, when the first bite has gone down you feel as if you are turning into a pet rock. Alas, it is just a delightful illusion, an unmissable part of the Dumpling Magic. For those of you who have come here to relax and enter the world of pet rocks, you could do no better than eat as many as you can while you are here. It is the best way of achieving maximum unity with your little pets and contributing to their interesting (if silent) animated discussion group which they have here at the Rubble Club once a week. Without the help of the rock cakes we might never have been even aware of it, let alone join in.
No doubt you are wondering where I have been? Well, the answer is,... on a coach trip to Scotland for the New Year parties. It was thanks to all those permanently jolly Scottish visitors who returned once again to stay in their (and my) favourite hotels Blackpool for the Christmas festivities. The Scots are very fond of their cocktail parties, as we all know, and where there are cocktail parties there are those little umbrellas which I like to collect for the welfare of pet rocks world-wide. Well, while I was behind the bar at the New Belvedere Hotel, collecting umbrellas, I heard those lovely Scottish voices talking about all the cocktail parties they had got planned for when they get back home for New Year. From what I could gather, on New Year's Eve the Scots all get together to pretend they are in Blackpool again. Every house has its own little cocktail party and they all stay awake all night drinking cocktails and being nice to each other. I am normally good at staying awake, as you know, and my desire for a few more sacksful of cocktail umbrellas got the better of me, and I secreted myself on board their coach when it returned home to Scotland after Christmas.
It all went to plan. The Scots are very good at pretending they are on holiday. Except for the absence of the seagulls, you would have sworn it was Blackpool. There were cocktails everywhere. I collected as many umbrellas as I could carry, listened in to lots of jolly conversations, joined in with all the sing-songs, danced along with the dancers, (although as I had forgotten my ladder I had to remain dancing alone on the floor like a wallflower when the others took to dancing on the tables). All in all I had a lovely time, but when morning came and there was no breakfast gong gonging and no squawking, seagully noise in the air, their pretending game was finally up. They had pretended they were in Blackpool admirably all night long but now it was all too clear that they were not really in Blackpool after all. Looking sad, green-faced and dejected, one-by-one, the Scots started to look droopy, took to their beds and went to sleep. I alone was alert and chirpy. But then, I am not fond of sleep, or cocktails (I am always wary of being poisoned by strange drinks...I stick to the flask of home-brewed gravel tea which I carry on my person at all times).
Where, I wondered, was the coach driver?
The coach driver, it seemed, instead of driving straight back with a fresh coach-load of Blackpool-bound tourists, had drunk one of those poisonous cocktails of which I am always wary and was too ill to drive. He was fast asleep on the dance-floor. I had to wait patiently within viewing distance of the luggage compartment for signs of the return journey getting underway. Usually the coach trips return back to Blackpool the next day with a new set of holiday-makers, but because of those New Year cocktail parties and the resulting bouts of illness, who could know when I would get home to Blackpool again? I decided to pop through the gnome-flap of a nearby Rubble Club member's house with a window overlooking the coach park, and in between keeping an eye on the coach, I inspected his pet rock collection. I handed out a few umbrellas to the dear little rockies and asked them to request a song for me to sing for them, as it was the festive season. They were unanimous in their choice. It was the Dumpling Chant number 8, always a winter favourite because it has nine beats in a bar, (the rhythm of summer)(it warms you up..... I will sing it for you some time.)
There was plenty of food in the larder, so I helped myself from a mountain of tasty-looking Scottish oatcakes, but they were lacking in something somehow, so I sprinkled them with some Blackpol sand from inside my shoes, and instantly they became delectable. I wonder if I can locate some Scottish oats in Blackpool when I get home? Just in case I cannot, I helped myself to a few extra ones to take home with me to add to next weeks buffet, dredged with sand of course. You see, even when I am far from home I never stop thinking of my duty to you, do I, Rubblers? I am quite tireless in that regard.
To cut a long story short, only today did I return from Scotland with the umbrellas and oatcakes. You will have to wait till next week for the oatcakes because I have to add my special Dumpling touch to them before I serve them up as my own.
I have just opened my mailbox and I am pleased to announce that my lovely prefect Linda from Kilmarnoch will be coming to Blackpool again soon. HURRAY! Linda, just make sure the coach is full of nice, kind, (wealthy) adoptive Rubble Clubbers because the over-wintering pet rocks are a little overcrowded at the moment, especially the orphans. There is also some new wrought iron pet rock furniture in the shop, just made to be perched on the sunny windowsills of those elegant, roomy kind Scottish homes where hundreds of pet rocks wil be sunbathing and overlooking those rocky Scottish landscapes during this coming year (that's if I can fix it for them). I will instruct Granny Gray, my shopkeeper to have plenty of adoption papers at the ready.
The coming year is going to be a happy, propsperous one for you all, Rubblers. I have planted my dream cocoon in the Rocky headlands on the Blackpool Promende and wished for it, so it will be so. The plant kingdom is the most reliable agent of change, and moves faster than rock magic, which, although reliable, lacks speed. Well, pet rocks can't all be good at everything. With that I will leave you to watch the goodness unfold until next week when we will, heaven willing, meet again. I remain your good, faithful friend and dutiful chairman, Madge Dumpling.