Cheesy Stuff

On the twentieth day of Advent my 3-D tree gave to me...another owl. A barn owl, to be precise. Luckily, it is perched on the opposite side of the tree to the first owl, so there should be no fracas over territory. I wouldn't pick a fight with this one, would you? Look at the glint in its eyes. Gives me the shivers. Onwards then, with Day Twenty of the Much Malarkey Manor Christmas Story. There's cheese involved...

...It is the day of the festival auditions – ‘Hurrah!’ I hear you cry - and from the East side of the woodlands, our gallant lady hens and the dancing ladies are heading towards the gates of the Five Gold Bells. And from the West side of the woodlands, our not so gallant Kenneth the Phantomime, two turtle doves, three French hens and ten lords a-leaping are doing the same.

Now, you’d think that at some point they might all bump into each other, which would be a very easy end to this story BUT the road leading to the gates is jam-packed with other auditionees because word has spread about the festival to celebrate the greatness of His Grace the Dauphin Dolphin a.k.a the Lord General Porpoise, and there is the added draw of a selection of cheese based sundries for lunch and who doesn’t like a freebie cheese sandwich? The road, then, looks like Oxford Street during the Boxing Day sales.

At first the crowds travel at a goodly pace, but as they near the gates, the flow slows until everyone comes to a gradual halt. Those near the front of the queue can hear the five gold bells of the gates being rung, accompanied by a bit of unfestive swearing, because it seems the four colley birds are unable to remember the correct ringing sequence, too. However, there is a good and friendly energy circulating amongst the crowds and Mrs Slocombe is soon chatting to a group of maids standing behind her.

‘Are you here for the auditions?’ she says somewhat unnecessarily because why else would they be queueing on a road with hundreds of others?

‘Well, we weren’t, not originally,’ says the maid. ‘We are from the ‘Eight Maids A-Milking Dairy Delights Company’ and we have been hired to deliver a variety of cheeses for the audition sandwiches,’ and she pats a large cart that is parked between the eight maids. ‘But then we thought we could audition, too. Might as well, whilst we are here.’

‘Good idea,’ says Mrs Slocombe, who likes a bit of ‘kill two birds with one stone,’ but not literally, of course. ‘What sort of act do you have?’

‘Acrobatics, mostly,’ says the maid. ‘Juggling balls of Edam, human Roquefort pyramid, a few magic tricks with Brie, that kind of stuff.’

‘And do you include crackers?’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘For cheese, I mean. Not the table ones.’

‘Sometimes,’ says the maid. ‘It depends on the cheese we are performing with, you know? Some aren’t a natural match with a cracker. Some, like Gouda, for instance, and Emmenthal, are better suited to fondue. We perform a dangerous daring do with a furnace of fondue, you know, but it might be a bit too risque for this audition. Plus, it takes a while to set up. Health and Safety issues.’

Mrs Slocombe nods sagely, like she has the slightest understanding what the milk maid is going on about. ‘What about cheese slices?’ she says. ‘I imagine they’d make good boomerangs or would add comedy to a slapstick routine?’

The milk maid looks aghast. ‘Cheese slices?’ she says. ‘You mean those yellow tasteless plastic squares sealed in more plastic that people use on their burgers and have the audacity to call cheese?’ She looks mightily offended, and Mrs Slocombe apologises immediately.

‘That’s okay,’ says the milk maid. ‘We are just a bit tetchy about highly processed plasticated cheeses, what with us being highly skilled dairy artisans, you know?’

At that moment, the crowd begins to move forwards again.

‘Here we go!’ calls Mrs Miggins. ‘Can we all stick together, please? We need to keep all beady eyes open for any sight of Kenneth. If we can catch him before we go through the gates, all the better.’

What Mrs Miggins doesn’t know is that the Phantomime and his mottley band of travelling players are way ahead of the hens and dancing ladies, and first in the queue at the gates. And Kenneth is taking some delight in watching the four colley birds trying to ring the five gold bells in the right order to make the gates open.

‘You’d think,’ he says, addressing Juan and Enrico in an unnecessarily loud voice, ‘that four sentry guards would know how to gain access to the very gates they are guarding, wouldn’t you?’

‘You would,’ says Enrico, who remembers how cocky and dismissive the colley birds were when he had tried to ring the bells a couple of days ago.

Juan is watching the lead colley bird carefully and notices his right eye is beginning to twitch in annoyance. It is highly entertaining.

Sidling up to the lead colley bird, Juan asks if he needs any help.

‘Sir,’ says the colley bird, raising himself to his full six inches tall, ‘we are fully in charge of the situation.’ He turns to one of his companions. ‘Arnold!’ he snaps. ‘Have you got that code yet? The Dauphin Dolphin is going to be LIVID if he finds out his own guards can’t open his own gates.’

Arnold is riffling through a small notebook. ‘It’s in here somewhere, Barry,’ he says.

‘What have I told you about NEVER writing down classified information?’ says Barry.

Arnold shrugs. ‘You know what my memory is like, guv,’ he says. ‘If I don’t write things down, I don’t remember them. A-ha!’ he continues. ‘There’s the sequence! I knew it was in here somewhere. It’s…’

‘DON’T say it out loud!’ says Barry. ‘There are people listening. Just show me. Give me the book, Arnold,’ and he snatches the book from his colleague, who tries to hang on to it, and in the minor and somewhat undignified fracas that ensues, the book goes flying high into the air and is caught in its descent by Juan.

‘Ah,’ says Juan, reading the code. ‘Allow me…’

And he steps up the bell pulls and tolls: ‘The Dau-phin Dol-phin!’

The gates swing slowly open and the gathered crowd cheers and surges forwards…