You: A young to mid-aged rodent lady, keen on short hops down the lane, veg tops (esp. beet, carrot, and radish), and have a special affinity for Chopin. Body size, color, and ear length is no concern, but a good dewlap just can’t be denied.

Would you like to share a life together? There are EVER so many things for us to experience. Namely, snuggling.

*B for bunny

H. Penniweggs cannot be denied...

Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes! The moment I arrived at the port of Old Siam, most unsettled by a bad cask of wine and a devilish case of malaria from the foul insects that buzzed about, I ran SMACK into – who else? – Jerry Wombat. He had received a cable from that dastardly curr, Finch, that I had been sacked and trundled off for my role in accounts and ledgers with J. Theramungo. “But Jerry!” I exclaimed, “I’ve no doings with Theramungo since the Great War! However could Finch hold such a grudge against a fellow for such water passed?”

Jerry, stalwart and distractable sort he is, suggested we drown our sorrows in a pint of noodles before making our way to the steamer set back home. A fine fellow, but a little prone to bloat (on account of fried things – noodles and otherwise), so I ambled beside him.

We saw MANY things in our locomotion of Old Siam! The Siamese are a lovely and particular sort. For example, did you know that screaming is their preferred method of communication? Or that cross-eyes are QUITE the norm in Old Siam? Though I saw many things in the trenches of French those many years ago, I never quite experienced the otherness of travel until I found myself trying to keep up with a portly wombat in Old Siam.

UNCLE ROGER

As we weaved and dodged the funny little screaming Siamese, who should we encounter but my dear departed mum’s second cousin, Uncle Jerry. Jerry’s a bit of the black sheep in the family, you see, as he ran off with a Siamese lass of ill-repute nearly 40 years back – leaving a wife and 400 children behind to pick up his pieces. A right scoundrel, if you ask me, which you did. I made nice-nice with the gent, because that is what a true gentleman does, but I high-tailed it out of there post haste!

After tucking into four plates of noodles, Jerry decided that it was QUITE necessary that we visit a place of God. They do not have churches in Old Siam, but they DO have little huts with a golden man to worship. If you ask me, a sleepy chap like that isn’t up to the task of creation and it’s proper upkeep.

That is just this fellow’s most humble opine. What do you think?

He had gentle, albeit cold, hands.

Oh dear! There is EVER so much smoke coming from my stove just now! I do fear the shortbread, baking in time for the arrival of the most dear Hibiscus T. Porridge, is getting rather singed. More on Old Siam in due time…

SIAM

Dear sirs! Most maidenly mademoiselles! Such foul and TERRIFIC circumstances find me back at my Little Home, and not dangling over a certain pit of DOOM this lovely August noon!

Where to begin? Where indeed…

Mere moments after setting out down the road to the market on that late June eve I last wrote, I was the victim of a kidnapping most uncouth. Struck from behind as I passed the bramble and branch just outside the stone columns of my drive, I sunk into a deep sleep from which I did not awake for nearly two full days. When I did awake, my body was shoved most ungraciously into a ripe steamer trunk, trundled off into the storage of some blasted boat bound for Siam!

J. Chubb

However! My attackers failed to take into account my most masterful tutelage under famed lock-maker, Jeremiah Chubb. I deftly escaped my confines and spent the rest of the voyage handily thwarting the young deckhands at all manner of game and song. Ribald though they may be, the young scallions learned quite a bit in the way of manners and chess playing on our two week voyage to the old East.

Captain Belliewigs

The captain, a right salty curr by the name of Thomisina Belliewigs, informed me that a gentleman ”dressed in nothin’ but black, and smellin’ of AWFUL death,” paid him 450 quid to see me delivered to a man by the name of “Uncle Roger,” once we docked in old Bangkok town. Quite plainly, he spoke, and quite plainly he traded me my freedom for my dear mother’s golden fobwatch (and a fifth of gutterwine I happened to have in a flask, secured to my thigh).

We landed in old Bangkok-town the second week of July, and OH MY the adventures that unfolded. But the night grows long, and I fear that my rheumy eye is acting up… adieu, adieu until the day provides better light by which to describe the utter madness yet to unfold in the telling.

The letter announced that my dear friend, Jerry Wombat, would be inCountry tomorrow and would be stopping by for a brief stay. While you may consider it uncouth to invite one’s self to stay with a friend, let us remember two facts:

a.) Jerry is Australian.

b.) Jerry is a Wombat.

We also both served Her Majesty together in the regimental corps, so he has carte blanche to stay with me ANY time he desires!

Note to self: stock up on the following for tomorrow’s dinner:

• 12 cabbages
• 7 unlined boxes
• 40 bottles sherry, champagne, and port
• 6 pheasants
• Bushel of carrots, one-half of broccoli
• Cherry torte

What a delight! Old chums are simply the best!

James P. Snufrump.

That’s right! Last night, I was out tinkering with my lovely little rocket (the HT PorridgeQueen), when what should I hear but the utter ruckus that SOME consider music at the Snufrump manor. That’s right, it was the “musical” stylings of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Cats, my friends, is not quality musical scoring. It is barely passable catterwauling!

I climbed down from atop my little rocket, and went over to ask that blasted puffin to PLEASE TURN DOWN HIS NOISE, but I discovered no one at home! On return to my little rocket, I noticed the most strong odor of peanut butter the second I entered the hatch, and was AGHAST to find little puffiny footprints all about the living quarters, etched in digusting peanut butter.

RIP - HT PorridgeQueen

The controls were quite ruined, and Snufrump’s filthy little wingprints were all about the destroyed landing buttons. I marched outside and found – you guessed it – that filthy puffin drinking from a cask of gutterwine and guffawing to himself.

“Why DID you do that, sir?” I inquired.

“Whatever do you mean, GB? I was just passing by and saw this contraption on your lawn and simply HAD to take a peek!”

“You FILTHY creature, do you have ANY idea what you have done?” But of course, he did not. Because he is a simple bloody creature who was too busy poking his beak where it did not belong.

How ever will I tell Hibiscus of this latest woe? I fear she may not accept another promise of the MOON voyage, and I shall never fulfill that which has been a life-long dream…

WOE!

Herewith is a list of MOST Urgent and Required tasks to Accomplish. Most immediately!

• Respond to that ponce, Pliny. Hrumph!
• Acquire three dozen pheasants, twelve large casks of gutterwine, four ounces caviar, seventeen wheels of gouda, twenty-four lettuce heads, fifty carrots (w/attached greens).
• Inquire after Hibiscus’ availability for picnic next week.
• Tidy the rocket (a lady does not take a dirty rocket).
• File flight plan… to the MOON!

Late the morning, just after my second breakfast of fine grasses and faeces, a toady little messenger arrived at my stoop. Please do not think I am being racial, he was LITERALLY a toady little messanger. I have MANY toad friends, and would never think of using that as an epithet. *Ahem* Where was I?

The letter was printed on the most sublime stock of paper, scented just so with a hint of honeydew and marigold. It read:

Why? Why!

How I long to see you again, how my tail feathers simply tremble at the thought of your embrace. Do pop ’round the villa nearish supertime and take me for a stroll?

All my fidelity,

~ Lady J. Featherbottom

P.S. I would not be opposed to a slight trinket of jewels to demonstrate your affection!

I was beside myself with excitement at the possibilities of strolling with this lovely creature under the glow of La Lune. So I pipped off immediately to the local bank to withdraw my mother’s PRIZED pearl strand from the vault. What good, after all, are wonderful heirlooms without a lovely bird to share them with?

Well ’round 7, I pipped over to her estate. Dressed in my most impressive suit of brown cut velvet (ermine trimmed, of course) and black patent boots, I looked every bit the dashing gentleman. What my stately look did not convey, however, was that my HEART was going one million beats per second – just ready to explode at the sight of my one love.

Sir William Plumenom

But folly, folly! As I approached the gate, I saw Sir William Plumenom gently caressing my lover’s UNGLOVED wrist, before whispering in her ear. She let out the same musical laughter I thought belonged only to me, and waved him well as he took off.

From the top-floor window, I saw Duke Tendertoes surveying the scene. With a smoking pipe between his teeth, and the sash of his silk bathrobe cinched tightly, I could almost see him laughing at my predicament. I stormed off quite immediately, that hussy Featherbottom’s cries of my name wafting in the ill late-spring wind.

Oh what to do, what to make of these events?! I am simply Crestfallen and Shocked at the likelihood I’ve been cuckold!