Mistress Tay

That's Spring Festival over for another year. Thank goodness for that.

Wouldn't it be so much better if every part of the island had its own little Spring Festival? Frankly, most of those little woodlanders would be happy with a few bottles of elderflower and some good old folk songs and party games. There are otter communities who spend all their lives smoking fish, what on earth do they want with a day at the Tower? I suggested such an idea to Lady Aspen and she thought it such a good idea! I know what you're thinking, and I am forced to agree that Lady Aspen was sometimes misguided. She did not always make the best decisions. But she knew how to do elegant occasions, and they did not involve every short-sighted worm-eating mole from the bowels of the earth turning up at the Tower.

Crispin - I suppose I should call him King Crispin - has no idea. That's what you get when the king insists on knowing every animal on the island by name. They may as well all be Tower animals as far as he's concerned and the queen encourages him. The Festivals these days end up with a lot of over-excited little creatures hopping about, and claw marks all over the grass. And of course they go down to the shore with Padra and his family and come back with sand in their fur and it gets everywhere. Cake crumbs, too. Moles popping up under your feet. Hedgehogs getting sticky around the spines and squirrels running round pelting each other with twigs. And if Sepia can get all those wretched infants to sing, why can't she make them STOP!

I am going to my room and do not wish to be disturbed.