Retire to the Shire

There will be radio silence for a couple of days as I go dark on a secret mission to reactivate sleeper agent Hobbit, aka "the Grandparents", "Mickey the Finger", "Lord Underhill" etc. Please continue in a holding pattern until I retweet back into your lives via fibre optic cable, filling you with joy and news from Deepdale.

In the land that time forgot we climbed the long hill and had fun guessing what animals lived in the holes in the hedgerows. There were definitely badgers, foxes and rabbits but I also claim dinosaurs and crocodiles. I exploded my first dandelion clock and we returned home through a long-forgotten bridleway that had a change of use order from the council stapled on it.

As ever I played golf with the golf stick that Grandad has specially shortened for me but stopped when the stinging nettles in the flowerbed got me. Mostly we played with real golf balls (it's a good back garden if you can play golf in it) but it did hurt when Bud got me on the ankle. Then we discovered "Practice balls" which are plastic ones with holes in: the new game is, I stand 20 feet away and he tries to hit me. He tried very hard but never managed it.

Had an enormous bubblebath then turkey risotto for supper, which they only told me after I'd finished so I didn't get the chance to say "Ooo, I don't like that".

Grandad wore a hat all through supper and was still wearing it when I went to bed. For all I know he wears it in the bath.

They have 2 new cats who are scared of humans. Being ex-breeder siamese all they understand is cages so they always run away and live behind the big plant pot at the top of the stairs. They are as stupid as a limpet, we tried a variety of languages, even Xhosa click language but they didn't understand anything except dangled ham at suppertime.