Hello, my dear tea cosies. I do hope that you are well. Kind gratitude to you, for reading my writings, both of you. Life in my hedge in Gloucestershire is splendid, and I adore the canal activities. I have found a new job at the Alternative Thinking College of Thrupp, where I shall be teaching Shrieking for Spritual Connection, Advanced Hiding, and Pointing for the Unconfident. I’m overjoyed.This week has been a trial. There has been a strange occurrence in our community, people began scratching and itching in a random fashion. I feared my hessian sack dress would soon follow this trend, but no, I am all well. It was a mystery. Farm hands and boat people were rendered incapable of moving machinery and water craft due to the incessant itch. I asked where has this come from? Some agricultural mite? A spaceship? Swindon? (wouldn’t surprise me)?

This is a pictogram, drawn by a local gentleman, Mr Dave Epiglottis. We don’t have cameras in this neck of the woods so he quickly sketched a throng of local boaters clawing at themselves to relieve the dreadful itch. Either that, or it’s an orgy, I’m not quite sure. Most look distraught, but Mrs Enid Rumpeter at the back, has that “look” of a woman in the throws of, well, something.

Anyway. I did some research. I googled itchy things, and no information was forthcoming. So I invoked the Sheep God and asked her advice. Baaarbara. An ancient woolly deity, with eyes the wrong way, and a killer kick. Amid a fog of incense smoke, she told me the itchy plague was wool rash. And….dun, dun, derrr, the root of the issue was a man from Bourton-On-The-Water. A bloody buggery weidron of a man who decided to plague Gloucester so he could step in, render the inhabitants incapable, and absorb the county in his own in preparation for world domination where sheep would be used to herd people into submission. Shocking. But world domination, as we know, often starts in the Cotswolds.

This is he. His name is Rabularia Stanton McFrog. He’s a ruthless git. He really does plan to take our lovely county. I trod the worn floor of my hedge wondering what to do and elegantly wringing my hands in a suitable Jane Austin manner. Then I ditched that and began swearing and cursing him for eternity. However, to curse a man fully, you need to sacrifice toads and have enough mugwort to mug a wort. And I didn’t. And I like toads. Satan once again is a seagull shitting on my breakfast flakes.

So, Plan B. I rang Aunt Vom, on the yoghurt pot telephone. She’d heard the news already, the canal bridges were shut as the bridgekeepers couldn’t keep still. Half the boaters were marina locked for the same reason. The other half were in the nick, for getting lairy and kicking off over substandard wool.

A week later, the writhing, itching population was ordered by sheep to attend a rally, where Rabularia Stanton McFrog was to issue a statement. The crowd were uneasy, as was I, as four sheep walked among the throng and passed us propaganda. The sheep were particularly agressive breed, the Cotswold Lion, which made them look like sheep but underneath was a different story. They emitted roars so loud it made your ribs rattle, and huge claws protruded from their feed. Any soul trying to leave or making seditious remarks earned a swift headbutt to the chibleys, before being dragged off and eaten alive. It was terrifying.

One man saw a window of opportunity, when a gate was left open, and he tried making a run for it. A head sheep, bolted after him and had the man return. We have no notion of what the sheep said to him, but he arrived back, ashen in complexion, muttering about torture. It later transpired that there had been a threat of making him watch Quantum Leap on repeat. Evil, pure evil.

I had no idea where Aunt Vom was, and the blood was beginning to pound in my ears. Is it possible that this regime could have wiped the old girl out? As Rabularia came to the podium, there was a deathly silence among the crowd. Women knitted awful cardigans in protest, children wailed, and men bit their own trousers in anger. Rabularia gave is dreadful manifesto, the Woolrash would be cured in five days, only if we completely surrendered to living picturesque villages of Cotswold stone. Cream teas at 3pm would become law, that drew a gasp or two. He said he would also install little bridges every hundred yards over attractive but shallow rivers in town, and our lovely hills had to be replaced with rolling hills, so they could be moved about easily if he fancied a change.

Just as Rabularia became crazed and began talking about Bibury Trout Farm, there was a commotion to the left of the stage. He ignored this at first, and issued further threats of death at the hands lethal trout, trained in close combat fighting. Then the commotion seemed to surge forward, and an explosion knocked him from the podium. Aunt Vom was here! When the smoke drifted away, she appeared on stage with her crossbow and took him out. One arrow struck him in the stifle, another caught him in the swim bladder, and he died shortly after. We all clapped and cheered, and became joyous again as the sheep bought single bus tickets for Moreton-In-Marsh and were never seen again.

Vom’s on the run but she’s quite safe, I had a carrier pigeon saying ‘All good, in a B and B in Temple Cloud. Quite at home, they’re all mad. Love you lots, don’t tell the rozzers. Love Vom x’.

The rozzers are dubious. though thankful. A county domination has been averted, and the Army has air dropped a plethora of calamine lotion for the itch. We have thwarted his plans, and I do love a good thwart. So all is well again, and I will say goodnight. It’s a schoolnight, and the toads are up past their bedtime. Pip pip, my dears, and may your tunics always be starched, and your coddlers ever be warm.