Ladies, I am returned!
When we visited South Fork, I met a simply wonderful man called Tex, sprightly despite his 82 years, and a member of the American nobility to boot! A baron!
One thing lead to another, as one thing is wont to do, and readers, I married him! We enjoyed hours days of bliss and nights of valium passion, so you can imagine how distraught I was when he was killed in a freak accident that I cannot bear to recall, except to say that it involved his prize heifer and some rubbing embrocation.
So I return to your company, empty of heart but comfortingly full of purse.
I shall help MsMary with her pamphleteering as recompense for having sinful thoughts about Toby Stephens while he was reading the CBeebies Bedtime Story.
And I would like to confirm, as Avid Reader of the Scrolls, that Gerald was originally a gerbil, but I think memory has bestowed hamsterhood upon him. And I reproduce here, in memoriam, Gibbon's original Ode to Gerald:
So often reviled
So often defiled
Earths poor little rodents, so meek and so mild
So little of paw
So large of heart
So oft' trodden on and squished apart
Much underrated
Misunderstood
Too often berated for being 'no good'
Oh sweet little creatures
Come, sit by my knee
I shall delight you with singing
And my dance of pure glee