Mrs Wibbsey's Festive Diary - Part 1

MRS WIBBSEY'S FESTIVE DIARY

1.

21^ST December.

I’ve been putting together a few festive treats, just in case YOU KNOW WHO comes back.

The past couple of Christmases I haven’t heard from him, but he’s bound to return soon, isn’t he? Hexford Village was where he loved coming home to at Christmas, he always used to say.

I’ve been across the green to the village store and I bought some nuts. Just a plain bag of mixed nuts. And some satsumas. I’m toying with the idea of doing my special stewed prunes again. He did admire them.

That Deidre Whatsit stopped me on my way back. Full of the joys, as per usual. Her face all aglow. She says she hopes I’ll join them for some eggnog on Christmas Eve. Just like last year. She and Tish Madoc, her snooty so-called cousin (who lives in with her) haven’t seen much of me lately, says she. Yes, I thought, and there’s a reason for that.

I’ve kept out of their way since Tish published her silly novel about us all. ‘Romance in the Milky Way’ indeed. I’m only relieved no sensible publisher would touch it and I’m not forced to see the ghastly thing when I go to the library or peruse the paperback carousel at the post office. Tish Madoc had absolutely no right to novelise our strange adventures in space and she knows it. It caused a proper rift between Mike and her. Put the kybosh on their blooming romance, or whatever kind of ménage was going on next door. Well, naturally it did. He’s military, isn’t he? Signed the official secrets act back in 1971 when they found lizard men living under Wenley Moor, did Mike, or so he told me. Everything’s on a need-to-know basis with him and he doesn’t want it all written about and published as an e-book, does he? We’ve seen neither hide nor hair of him in Hexford since Tish’s launch at the village hall.

What’s that funny buzzing? I’ve been hearing it all day. Something electrical. Not insects. Definitely not hornets. No, it’s like a hairdryer’s been left on in a distant room. Or the speakers on a faulty gramophone. A deep humming note.

Oh, but the cottage is quiet.

Funny, I’ve felt all day like someone’s watching me. I’ve been scrubbing out my smalls and it’s like someone’s looking right over my shoulder. My hackles have gone up.