Monday, January 28, 2008

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Rutland in the snow

So ends another week (and year) for Rutland's favourite peer.

Monday (Christmas Eve)
And so Christmas comes again to Rutland. One of the peculiarities of the climate hereabouts is that one can always rely upon snow in the days before the holiday, with the result that it lies deep, crisp and, indeed, even in the village as carol singers with lanterns make their way from door to door. “It could be a Christmas card,” as a fellow traveller remarked to me as we took the stagecoach into Market Harborough for some last-minute shopping.

Beneath the Christian festival, the older pagan traditions still flourish: it is, for instance, customary to feed a tot of brandy to each tree in the orchard to ensure a good crop the following autumn - or so Meadowcroft assures me as he helps himself to my finest Armagnac each year.

Compliments of the season to all my readers and I wish you winnable by-elections in 2008.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

At the risk of incurring a backside full of buckshot, dare one ask why the archive on the Lord Bonkers website doesn't contain any of the diaries since February 2006 ? Perhaps his Lordship should set aside the Auld Johnstone and set his secretary tom the electric internet to set the matter straight?