The Gardeners Rest #12 (2017)

[veggiechicken]

.............Its no good asking me how to celebrate a birthday, I stopped having them when I was 21, that's about 10 years ago, rary, and I haven't aged a bit since then. I remember my 21st though, i spent the day in a paddling pool filled with penguins and a trained dolphin called Dewi who brought up a delicious birthday meal of red and yellow jellyfish on a platter of mixed nori and bladderwrack. I brought it up soon after too.
However, Lumpy may prefer to do something adventurous with a proboscis monkey and Hubert Hippo who likes a bit of company in his mud bath. or, of course,................

[rary]

She could decide to trip the light fantastic with rary, who in truth was the best mover on the dance floor, and of course he knew what women wanted, well every one except his wife

[Lumpy]

who was fed up of him hogging the mirror and using all her hairspray so he could brush, twist and curl his hair into....................

[Cadalot]

a question mark on the top of his head, fact was there was not a lot of hair left to play with these days and Rarys face looked like it had already worn out two bodies, but bless him he had this mental image in his mind that he was John Travolta. No not in drag in that 2007 remake of the film Blondie was in "Hairspray" but in Saturday Night Fever......

[Lumpy]

where he and some of the other Grapes could re-enact the famous scene where they..................

[Snoop Puss]

dance on the dance floor, but no-one wants to be an onlooker in the crowd, everyone wants to be Tony and Stephanie, regardless of their age, so they all end up...

[Lumpy]

crammed together in the middle of the dance floor.

As the music started hands went on hips, arms went in the air and hips (with and without replaced parts) started wiggling around.....................

the dance floor suddenly lit up in little squares and the normally confused Lumpy thought she was playing twister...........her left leg went through VC's handbag strap onto the red square..............her right arm caught in Rary's sporran strap and landed on the yellow square...............but worst of all her trunk went straight up....................

[veggiechicken]

................and knocked Snoop off the top of the Christmas tree, where she was pretending to be a fairy, with a flouncy netting skirt and wings made from toilet paper (unused).
Snoop's wings fluttered and flapped but the bog-standard toilet paper shredded and she fell in an untidy heap, skirt over her halo, onto..............

[Lumpy]

the huge Christmas trifle that Lottie had been constructing for days. Cream, jelly and custard flew everywhere but the huge cherry off the top zoomed towards...............

[Snoop Puss]

... VC, who had the foresight to open her mouth wide and swallow it whole, thereby saving the day!

Snoop was all of a fluster, this being the first time in her life that she had had wings and a halo and she didn't quite know how to control them. And while the paper the wings were made of was of bog-standard quality, the netting of her skirt saved the day and her modesty. Rary managed to retrieve his sporran, and though Lumpy was sad at the loss of her trifle, she was quite relieved to see...

[Lumpy]

a huge custardy, jellified heap right next to................

[Snoop Puss]

Cadalot and...

[veggiechicken]

.......Flumpy, who jumped and bounced, pranced and danced in the squelchy mound, flinging bits of jelly and custard in every direction.
The walls were spattered, the tree glistened with globules of jelly, even GL's head gleamed under a yellow custard dollop that looked very much like a Trompetto.
"Luuuuuuuuuuuuuumpy" hollered, Nicos, who liked the GR to be clean at all times.
Lumpy knew just what had to be done to appease Nicos. With one mighty suck, she hoovered up all the trifle and holding her breath, she wheezed over to.............

[Snoop Puss]

to the window and let fly.

Nicos was appeased but slightly worried that the jelly might not have composted down by the time the daff bulbs outside decided to show themselves. Still, Lumpy had done her best and there was no point being angry, especially as her son was due to turn up soon.

The other mods, however, were not...

[Lumpy]

'amused'.

They had put up with Lumpy's huge hoofers and now a little mini version of her for long enough.

The chimney made a fluttering sound and then belched as loads of crisp envelopes (well would have been except for the ash stains etc) came fluttering down and landed on a heap in the middle of the floor.

Each one was addressed to a specific Grape and as the Grapes picked theirs up there was complete silence because everyone was scared that the 'MODS' were going to shut the Gardeners Rest.

VC started reading hers.......................To VC, either the pub goes or the elephants go your choice.............luv and huggies (no not the nappies) the MODS XXXXXXX.

VC gulped and looked around the bar. As people read their letters some laughed and some looked like they could.............