Now I love a good costume drama. I adore all those young - and elderly - ladies running around in English literature. All that talk of reticules and petit point,  bonnets and bits of lace,  social etiquette and  paying calls and leaving cards and the Elusive Search For A Husband to save you from spinsterhood. I often curl up on the sofa with a  cup of tea and Jane Austen,  and Fanny Burney's Working Life is a thing of beuaty for me. So imagine my glee at seeing a preview for Lark Rise to Candleford, soon to be appearing on the TV. There was the usual array of be-ribboned ladies bemoaning their fate. facing genteel poverty and comic actors called on to don aprons and  be the Light Relief (and probably bagging a BAFTA for their pains).

  But  I couldn't quite believe they were playing Led Zeppelin as the incidental music over the top.

 Will someone PLEASE put me  out of my misery and confirm this?  Or do I need to go a bit easier on the gin?
 

If you are a new reader you will not be aware that my cat - Mad Frankie - has a habit of bringing me little presents upon occasion.

I have had numerous rats - both dead AND alive - a couple of starlings, a large, dead pigeon and a rather hacked off magpie which played dead for twenty minutes and then got up and stalked about complaining underneath the dining table. All of these were disposed of (or let free in the case of the living) as soon as possible. I find that swapping things for chunks of smoked ham works particulary well and prises open the most recalcitrant of firmly locked cat jaws......

But today I had a first. A rather fine goldfish was to be found flopping about on the dining room rug only an hour or so ago. Screeching and wringing my hands in despair at such a thing didn't help matters so I hurriedly scooped him up and put him in the large Pimms jug I had to hand (No, it didn't have booze in it. I am not wasting that on something cold blooded. And that includes a certain gentleman I know too) It stood on the coffee table for an hour or so looking strangely puzzled as to its new home and mesmerising Frankie who stared at it with large saucer eyes - no doubt planning another lightning fast raid on it. But the poor thing shouldn't be so limited in space so I have located a bucket from the cellar, filled it with water and a few stones and given it a new home in the bathroom*

But where on earth did it come from? Is there some samll child traumatised at witnessing this daring raid on an aquarium and is now having nightmares? Or is there some slightly pissed student staring at an empty bowl and wondering where the hell the fish has got to? And how the HELL did it survive being caught, dragged along the streets, in through the cat flap and being played with for a few minutes? It seems relatively undamaged although has lost some scales but is quite happily swimming around. but I suppose it can't remember anything anyway.....

Oh and just to make him feel part of the family, I have named him. He's now called 'Lunch'

* Well it's the only room in the house with a door on it that I can close and keep Frankie away from. If I leave it elsewhere it is going to a snack within ten minutes of him being alone in the house with it.....

Well not me exactly. (I can do my own press and publicity  thank you) But Mad Frankie and  Lunch the Fishy are certainly getting a lot of attention these days.  Radio Nottingham  did a piece on the amazing escape From The Jaws Of Death  yesterday  morning and today  the Nottingham Evening Post  wanted a quick interview. So a photographer has  just left  the house and we have terrified poor Mad Frankie with attempting  to get a cute shot of him next to Fishy in his bowl. He did not like the camera in his face,  he was nervous and looked grumpy and wary all the time.* For one who was so recently almost  plaything and supper, Fishy was the most professional. He posed and came up to the front of the bowl and positively sashayed around it, waving his tail invitingly.

What a tart. I bet you I'll be cropped out too.

* Now if it had been Big Ron, the photographer would have his face and hands in ribbons and probably his camera fenced by the time he left.  But then with Big Ron, there would be no Fishy to talk.....

 Fishy and Frankie are now media stars in their own right. Radio interviews have been done, they appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post today and on Friday we have a film crew arriving to document this Very Important News Story.

 Fishy wants a bigger bowl and larger castle to swim around and Frankie is demanding a stylist. At this rate, they'll be able to get a table at The Ivy quicker than I can.... 

  My beloved best boy, my darling man, my dresser and confidante and Keeper Of The Dressing Room Russ "Bear" Sherwood has died suddenly.

 I am bereft, distraught and utterly all at sea without him.

I had to get the Police to break the door down.

 I cannot write any more.