Dear Elves,

We hope you found the wallpaper steamers we left out for you.  If by any chance you finish the walls tonight, feel free to make a start on stripping the ceiling.  We won’t be back till teatime tomorrow so keep going for as long as you wish.

The cottage in which we are currently hiding is only about half an inch south of the M25 in ActorLaddie’s Road atlas but is, nevertheless, something of a pastoral idyll.

The welcome handbook in the cottage says that we are very welcome to bathe in the lakes, which are a whopping 11 C, but, alas, we didn’t bring our togs.  Otherwise, there would have been no stopping us, natch.

The owner of the cottage, Jacs, has a small flock of Portland sheep which are kept in the surrounding fields.

Yesterday evening, I looked out of the kitchen window and there, just yards away, was a sheep giving birth!  Within minutes, the lamb was cleaned up by her ma, given her first feed and taking her first steps.  Blooming marvellous.

After about ten minutes, Jacs picked up the lamb and carried it, with the Ma trotting along besides, to the lambing shed where they will have a day’s TLC before rejoining the flock.

Apparently all the lambs born this spring were fathered by the one ram. Heck, think of the maintenance payments.

Today, ActorLaddie and I visited Knole, which started as an Archbishop’s palace and eventually became the home of the Sackville West family.

I love chatting to the NT volunteers in these places: they are so knowledgeable and enthusiastic.  One of the rooms which has recently been restored with lottery money is the King’s Bedroom, which was built in the hope that James II would stay there.  He didn’t.

The room does, however, have a very splendid four poster bed which was orginally made for Henry VIII.  Apparently the guide was passing this information on to a family a few days ago, when the young lad told him that it couldn’t have been Henry VIII’s bed, as Henry had six wives and the bed was far too small for seven people!

Think what size bed Jacs’s ram would need for his harem!

Anyway, dear elves, I will delay you no longer with mindless anthropomorphism​.  Keep up the good work – we look forward to inspecting the result.

Yours with a hey nonny no,

Jellywoman