A Rather Shabby Designer Baptist Fundamentalist

An odd thing today.

We saw somebody staggering towards the Great House dressed in what looked rather a tatty suit. As he got closer we realised it was actually our old colleague and irritant Drayton Parslow, dressed from head to toe in battered Armani.

It would appear that, since we last saw Drayton, he has seen both better and worse times. He has apparently been working as the pastor of a church up in the Midlands, although we have since gathered that his wife Marjorie has succeeded him in that post. Poor Drayton, meanwhile, after a period of aimless wandering that culminated with a short time living "in a concrete pipe next to a spinney in Wellingborough", decided to walk back to Husborne Crawley on the off-chance he might find some stray Beaker Folk.

Drayton is making the completely implausible claim that he has spent the last few months being a relatively successful blogger, with a large following in the United States. Challenged to provide any evidence of this, he typed a URL into my Chrome browser, only to be informed that his postings have all disappeared. He claims Marjorie may have deleted all evidence of his former online existence.  Or that Google Analytics is lying about his Chrome stats.

He also asked if he could introduce a friend. When we allowed him to do so, he whistled and another figure appeared at the far end of the Bottom Meadow. On coming closer we discovered we had a full-grown and - for the species - rather handsome specimen of Wodewose. Mr Walter Vole, as he called himself, was accompanied by what he claimed - without any evidence - to be a group of talking rabbits. That is to say, he definitely had some trained rabbits, but there was no sign they could actually talk. For want of something better to do, we've parked him in a quiet corner of the wood.

So it's been an odd kind of a day, but for the time being we've given Drayton his old room back while I try to think up some titles. In the old days he spent all his time plotting to steal my job, but I'm happy to let bygones be bygones. I'm that kind of a trusting girl. Though I'm keeping the Slazenger handy.