BURROW WAKES WEEK

Next week is the Burrow staff annual holiday, so there will be no more posting in the Burrow or the Arena for a while.

Dame Barbara is wafting Anticant away in her cream-and-gold Roller to an exclusive luxury health farm in the depths of the country, where they will both be mud-bathed and otherwise cosseted and pampered to their hearts’ content.

The Beadle and Mrs Malaprop are embarking on a “getting to know you better” event at Butlin’s, Somewhere-on-the Coast. Will they share a chalet? Perhaps we shall never know…..

Wooffie has been loaned to Lavenderblue as her escort on a Westward Ho! nature trail. The original plan was for Ben Trovato to take Wooffie on a mountain rescue adventure course in the Cairngorms, but Wooffie is avid to have his portrait painted, and looked so pathetic that Dame Barbara rashly lent him her best string of pearls and waved them both goodbye – we hope only temporarily.

Ben, who is a keen student of ‘form’, has duly absorbed the Naked Kayaker’s highly instructive exposition of ‘grobbling’, and has announced his intention of going wherever destiny leads him to grobble for Crafty Housemaids. We await the results of his efforts with interest and some trepidation.

Miss Marple has kindly offered to stay behind and guard the Burrow against intruders. She Is a most trustworthy and resourceful chatelaine, and we have every confidence that her prim determined respectability – not to mention her close contact with the local constabulary - will be highly effective in deterring unwanted callers.

And so, for now, farewell……….