I was in disgrace for eating and entire loaf of bread the other night. Daddy says that I came to have the waistline of a tellitubby overnight and I know that Mummie would have been a lot harder on me had I not discovered her little secret. Last nights chimney fire was not as a result of the chimney needing to be swept as she claims, but due to her burning the packaging of illicit purchases before Daddy could see the evidence. She was supposedly Christmas shopping. Daddy came in to the sitting room and exclaimed in a slightly high pitched kind of a way that there was a tremendous roaring noise from the chimney and that outside, in the darkness it looked as if there was a massive roman candle on the roof. Mummie looked quite calm ( she has done this before when she was burning other ill gotten gains) and expressed the view that the chimney was lined and that it must be needing swept. She is very cool about such things, in spite of having set a neighbours chimney on fire due to the over enthusiastic application of wood to their drawing room fire several years ago. In that instance Daddy was dispatched through an upstairs window with a garden hose in his hand. I digress. I have been warned that if I spill the beans my rations will be cut in half with immediate effect. No matter, there is always another loaf of bread I am sure. Mabel has been instructed to feed me no leftovers during the shoot lunch season, but I think it highly unlikely that she will be able to resist me. She calls me "the pain of my life" but I think she means "bane".

This is a picture of us all relaxing in the winter sunshine. NB. It is hotter than July