Pendragon and I woke up this morning,fully expecting the change over of our clocks to have automatically altered the course of the weather. Where were the sunbeams which ought to have been dancing on our bedroom window sill ? Where was the tantallising dawn chorus to greet the new season ? The day begun should have been altogether more pleasant, and full of promise for the summer days to follow . The sky is still full of rain and I can see a vast array of birds in the trees opposite the toadstool,sitting huddled in their wet misery, beaks and feathers full of disappointment. We have cancelled the desk building for today as there are other jobs which need to be accomplished first. I need to clear some space in the BLUE ROOM and take the present poor substitute for a working surface out of the room. This may take some time as the present desk is storing various bits and pieces of office equipment which need to be put into careful storage. Pendragon,I have to say, is looking relieved. He has curled up on our leathery settee with a good book,a cup of acorn coffee, and MY CROSSWORD. For months Pendragon has been rather insulting about the level of my Crossword ability, and my choice of puzzle, but for the last three weeks, has pounced on it , half apologising for doing so, while eagerly filling in boxes with supposed correct answers. To be fair ,he does often hit upon the correct solutions, but from time to time he will complete the boxes with random words, and insist his solution is the only one possible. Despite it being glaringly obvious that this now prevents any other box being correct,he adamantly soldiers on,shoving in letters,trying to make other answers work,before throwing the broadsheet up in the air in pique and disgust.
"There must be a mistake somewhere" he will say. "Maybe we should let the editor know." One glance at the crossword proves that not only are half the answers impossible, but it is equally impossible to sort it out. A mass of black inky corrections meets the eye. I have thought about concealing that part of the paper which contains the crossword,but that rather goes against our policy of always being open and honest with each other. Instead I just let out a yell of indignation,that once again my chances of winning this week's crossword competition are totally scuppered, and would he please not write any old thing in ,just to complete it. He returns a look of pique that I should have the gall to lay the blame at his little green pointy feet, and says "well,if you don't want my help then".and the air goes a little cold for twenty minutes before we end up laughing and giggling about it. I cannot be angry with Pendragon for too long. He is,to coin a human phrase, unbelievably cute. I love him dearly. His smile could launch a thousand coracles,his wit as sharp as a sandpiper's beak, his love as true as the straightest arrow. So today he reads and has coffee,while I clean our toadstool toilet,and wash our fairy garments,ready for the new week ahead. All in all it seems a fair distribution of labour,as he works so hard during the week,at the Royal Dingley Dell Hospital. Pendragon,mystic, philosopher,and healer of souls, has helped many Dingley Dell faery folk,with his words,and strategies ,to ease their troubled minds and clear their anxieties.He is a good listener,with consummate skill to put folk at their ease,encouraging them to talk about their depressions,and feelings of helplessness. Even faery folk can feel down .Pendragon has achieved much in his role at the hospital,now having reached the dizzy heights of Senior Consultant Healer of Souls. He has written many papers, and books on topical faery ills,and has also become a media personality on Dingley Dell TV and Radio. I often turn the radio to Dingley Dell Digital,to hear his dulcet transatlantic voice charm listeners on a variety of queries. I am very proud of all his achievements. He currently is writing his first novel, a psychological thriller he tells me,involving the CIA,FBI and possibly the Dingley Dell Redoubtables. At one point he told me that one of the characters might be based on me, his dear Amarantha. However ,lately,he has refuted that,saying he is saving my character, for his second novel.I fear there may be some reasons for this. Either, he is concerned that my foibles displayed over 400 pages might be too much for me(or anyone else) to bear,or he wants to break it to me gently that he has based the villain, a particularly nasty specimen,on me. How could a vegetarian, gnome loving, bird feeding,moon dancing, villain strike fear in the heart of any reader ? I remain bamboozled.The rest of the world seems strangely quiet today. I have not observed much movement in the surrounding toadstools. I saw Weedy Primpole from no. 6 , arriving home in his big maroon two-wheeler.He opened the back,allowing the gold and black wildebeests to clamber out,and head up the path.I cannot fathom whether he actually did take them for a country walk, or just put them in the back and drove round the block for a while. No doubt Severity Primpole will give them all the third degree as to where and why they all went.Further up the avenue in the third toadstool from the left,live Nobbie Shilpit and his family. I rarely see them during the week,but cannot seem to avoid them at some point during the weekend. Nobby has a wife,rarely seen in the open air, and two growing sons- Oggie and Gwyllum Shilpit.Nobby the goblin displays two distinctly different personalities to the world at large. Sometimes he appears to be friendly,offering to help his neighbours and acquaintances in any way possible,no job too small,almost to the point of interference. He always knows the best way to carry out a task,will always point out where you are going to come a cropper if you don't do things his way. The effect being that you so resent the interference, that you immediately make a pact with yourself to go on regardless in your own sweet way,rather than allow Nobby to take a hand in things.At other times,Nobby seems to display a much darker side. The toadstool is often shrouded in darkness,allowing no one to determine whether the Shilpits are at home.Business visitors to No. 3 are bemused to find that no one ever answers the door, although the upstairs blinds will be seen to twitch.Conversations with Nobby suggest that he is a man with an eye for the main chance,and that chance may not always be strictly legal. His elder son,Gwyllum, is a sweet boy. polite and willing,with an ever sunny smile. His younger son, Oggie,however ,seems to have inherited the darker Shilpit nature, and is known in the area as Oggie the Hood.Procuring sweets from the local provisions store is one of his ploys,and throwing stones at other people's two wheeled carriages has been noted to be one of the others. A less than sunny figure around the avenue,we await Oggie's further development with more than a little trepidation.For the third week running Gumble the gnome from no.4 has remained in absentia, and the present encumbents of Toadstools 7 and 8 have not been seen THIS YEAR. Is there something dark and mysterious happening in the avenue ? Or have they all won the Dingley Dell lottery and failed to let us know ? Yes, Dingley Dell,our sweet and precious haven,may have its own dark and hidden secrets to reveal. More,after a little further investigation. Love to all my friends and much deliberating, From Amarantha, the Rainbow Faery. -