A review and keeping toes warm!

I should like to say thank you to Sarah who posted notes of delight on her blog following her reading of Nearly King Jimbo. She enjoyed it enormously, and has called for there to be sequels. She has even suggested ideas for titles, one of which was a bit iffy and involved a certain genre of adult film; Nearly King Jimbo wouldn't get involved in such shenanigans, I'm afraid, well, not if he wanted to stay off the front page of the News of the World anyhow. And Alice would be appalled. (However, I shan't bring up the past of his mother, the Queen, as she might take offence and sue me.)

But thank you anyway, Sarah - it means a lot that you have bought the book, read it and felt it worthy enough to recommend to other people. Bless you, and come around for some cake when you're next passing by.

So, up with the lark this morning and out into the garden to scatter straw hither and thither amongst the grounds of Cluckinghen Palace. I am convinced that the recent plunge in temperature (minus 6 this morning - brrrrrrrrr!!!), means that I'm going to come home from work one day to find Les Mesdames iced to the ground and unable to move.

'Well, that's not going to happen,' says Mrs Pumphrey who has got over her disappointment at not being a Queen of England in waiting by going shopping and treating herself to a pair of Ugg boots. 'Not now I've got these babies,' and she waggles her feet at me and promptly falls over because one should never waggle both feet in the air at once unless one is sitting on one's assets.

'And I've got these,' says Mrs Miggins, showing off her Fat Face Furry Slipper Boots. She got a pair after seeing the ones Andy got me for Christmas last year which I ADORE because they are so soft and warm it's like walking around wearing a cat on each foot.

'And as long as I can stay balanced on these stilts,' says Mrs Slocombe,'my feet shall ne'er come in contact with the ground all this Winter.'

I am suspicious of this. I know what she's like after a Christmas sherry or five.

'That's as maybe,' I say. 'But I am still worried about the freezing ground and your skinny little chicken feet becoming as one. Therefore, I am going to scatter a goodly layer of straw around the place, so get over it.'
'If you must,' says Mrs Miggins.
'I must,' I say, and set about scattering.

I scattered in the bivouac, I scattered under the new orangery. Oh yes, Andy has built an orangery at the Palace. Okay, it's a wooden frame with a bit of corrugated roofing plastic tacked to the top, but it forms another light and airy shelter for the Winter and you know what the girls are like about naming the various architectural aspects of their abode. I tried to scatter under the pod, but the eucalyptus tree that was, is still determindely sending out baby branchlettes, so I need to crawl into the undergrowth and have a prune if a want to stand even a snowball's chance of getting any straw under there.

And then the chickens followed behind me and had a riotous time scattering the straw out of the bivouac and out of the orangery and all over the place.

But even they had to admit it was a jolly good idea and would keep their toes extra toasty warm in this weather.