To think we should have finished off the Queen of Huns?

[Hullygully]

Oh! Tis lovely to be riding again.

Mother dear, Aunties, many thanks for rescuing me from the clutches of the vapid females...they tried to make me drink a bottle with squash in it! Me! fed on ambrosial necter and the goodness of my dear wetnurse!

I must calculate our longitude...

Pah!

You know dear companions, I feel that interesting though our Mt Olympus sojourn has been, it is now time to return to the gentle climes of England and consider Nigel's education. He is, after all, and English Gentleman and must be fashioned as such.

Where are we to then? Harrow? Rugby? Hogwarts?

St Custards?

Ampleforth?

Grange Hill?

Bash Street?

Fenn Street?

hurry up Hully ffs, ere we run out of schools!

otherwise Nigel will have to come to Newington Green with me. I will see he gains a creditable O level in diffent/pamphleteering and not one of these bobbins modern ones like meeja studies (whatever that may be)

I was thinking, with gentle melancholy and murmuring hankerings, of The Hall. That gracious and echoing edifice that stands so splendidly English mongst the misty fields of Quintessential England. And as well as the memories (and several frozen corpses) there is the ha ha for little Nigel to frolic in. And we could engage a governess. A woman of rare and refined sensibility who yet speaks Latin and Greek and has a fair grasp of algebra.

That would just leave a fencing master and a riding instructor to be engaged. And as we seem to have lost all the husbands, they might be young, and virile, with flashing eye and curling lip.

I'm there

Oh dear Mama, shall it be like Tom Brown's school days? Shall I be flogged and forced to toast bread for bigger boys...shall fagging be my future?

Tis the way of the world Nigel dear. Hmmm I think I may have to revisit the going to school gift I brought you actually

I have spent so little time at The Hall I know not what my role should be...?
Perhaps some kind of maid, I seem to become less and less noble with each loaction move.
I will be in charge of the latrine if my fall from grace continues.
Perhaps I could aquire the patent for Maiden Juice and make my fortune? I would then have many suitors.

incidentally is anyone else picturing Nigel a little something like this?

...ah. Just me then.

Oh! Ms Mary, where dod yo procure such a marvellous and exact image maker of young Nigel? Tis truly wondrous.

Paggy, you will slip into life at the hall with ease and accomplishment. You have only to inhabit it, we are ladies after all and as such have accomplishments rather that occupations

So, on, Pegacentaurs, onwards to the dear Hall!

You will not be a maid Pag! you shall be a lady and we shall have have much mirth and merriment!

Ah. I dimly remember the Hall- flashes of which come unbidden to me, as in a nightmare

I shall be fashioning a rustic shed from pamphlets and old bits of four by two I find around the grounds. This shall be sufficient for my needs

No no no Mary.
Here is Nigel when I took him to meet his mentor

I think you are all being rather mean towards my darling boy.

He's adorable make no mistake.

Will there be eurhythmy?

Oh Paggy, how could you mimeograph Zeus/Darcy thus? Verily you have undreamt of talents. I think we might assign you the interior decorating task. Tis true that The Hall is a tad on the gloomy side.

Do you suppose poor Tether is still lurking in the slums of Cairo somewhere, with poor dear Keith, Nigel's half-brother?

There WILL be eurythmy, and quadrilles and stripping the willow...and...I confess I cannot help but wonder whether Mr Rochester might not have found his way home....