Rubble Club Archives

Rubble Clubbers, we meet again, but sadly for me, too soon.  If I do not seem my usual welcoming self, the nice open-hearted Madge Dumpling, Chairman of the Rubble Club and world-famous pet rock expert you have all come to know and love, it is because I am in a black, glum mood.  I have failed in my work. Last week I promised you a new story to add to your collection of pet rock bedtime stories, but despite my superhuman efforts (for which I am famous) I have not managed to write it all down in time. I like to do my best handwriting at all times because I am a perfectionist, as you know, but no sooner have I started to write but the sun comes out. The sunshiny back-yard of the Stone Quarry turns into an oven and the pet rocks get  hot and bothered and bored with watching me write. I am tempted to rush, blot and scribble a bit so I can finish it any-old-how and take them down to the beach in my new sun-suit with my bucket, spade and ladder, but I will not! You know me, I am never weak-willed in the face of temptation, so sensibly, to ensure proper standards are maintained, I just keep leaving the story-writing till later when the sun has gone in.  When I promised you the story, I could not have foreseen this relentless sunshine. When the story is finished, possibly by next week, I will be in a much better mood, smilingly perfect again and you will be glad I took my time because the story will be lovely. Neat and perfect.

Today, once again I have had no time for story-writing because I have been preparing the buffet for the meeting. I have made some crunchy little sand pies and rock cakes, each with a nice shell on top. I have given Bob the tea boy a day off because he and his talented knitster wife, Linda, have been on yet another coach trip around the Rocky Headlands of Scotland, and Bob, who no doubt makes Scottish tea for everyone whenever the coach stops(like the magical tea-boy that he is,) is bound to be exhausted.  I have had a beautiful postcard from Linda. It is from Dufftown, which looks like a town made entirely of rocks, with mountains in the background. There are rocks everywhere but not a pet rock in sight, (until now!) It will make a perfect home-from-home for the orphans which Linda hands out to nice people wherever she goes, especially if they are called Linda, like herself. Thank you Linda and well done for repopulating Dufftown with pet rocks!

So, despite being over-worked and behind schedule as I am, I have made the tea myself this week. It’s my own gravel and cabbage leaf blend, one of your all-time favourites, nice and cold because I made it last night. Bob will be back next week, all being well, with his own secret tartan-wrapped ingredients that turn my nose redder than ever.

Granny Gray, my shopkeeper in the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, has had some of her favourite customers in the shop this week. Do you remember that beautiful little girl, Eleanor, who wrote me a letter about her pet rock, Princess, a few weeks ago, and won a prize tiara for her efforts? Well she came back with her understanding father to buy a little pal for Princess, and a pet rock toilet big enough for two. Eleanor is a very good reader and writer and has read all the pet rock bedtime stories to Princess. Granny Gray foolishly told her there would be another story on the website by now, but as we all know, there has been a slight delay, and she will have to read Killjoy Roy and his Squeaky Toy to the rockies for a bit longer. According to Granny Gray, who knows all the gossip, Eleanor’s dad has bought two kittens, Coco and Eric, to entertain her pet rocks. Now that they will, no doubt, be installing a gnome/cat flap I shall be popping in for a visit soon, Eleanor, to fluff around like a mother hen amongst Princess’s growing tiara collection.

Grandad Gray has screwed some hanging baskets full of flowering plants up on the wall outside the Magic Wand Factory, and the pet rocks have been pestering to go up and sit in them and swing around in the sea breeze amongst the geraniums. I think it is too dangerous out there on the main road. They could be stolen by hanging basket thieves and who knows where they could end up, so I have made them some little round hanging huts instead, with ribbons and bells instead of flowers, which I have pegged along the washing line in the back yard where I know they are safe. If you want one for your little pets to sit in, you will have to come and get one from the shop.  Some day soon, I will get Grandad Gray to put all these beautiful and useful pet rock accessories  on the web site for you to buy. I keep saying that, but, despite my constant nagging, so far he has done nothing about it. Just because they are little and cheap he can’t be bothered with all the wrapping and posting of millions of pet rock hats, takeaway dinners, books, swings, slides, toilets, beds, three piece suites and pictures, not to mention the pet rocks themselves. Don’t worry, I am not giving up, Rubble Clubbers, and when they finally appear on the web site I want you all to order a great big boxful of stuff  immediately, just so I can say “There! I told you so! Now, send Granny Gray off to the post office with them and be quick about it!”.

Later, when you have finished the buffet and the sun has gone down, Linedancer would like to take us through some advanced linedancing moves, called Tush Push or Push Tush, or something. I daresay I shall be the best at it as usual, but I will watch from the back and see how it is done first, in case I think I may not be the best, in which case I will dutifully get back to my story writing in the back yard, and I will see you all next week. Until then, I remain your over-worked chairman and temporarily unpleasant little friend, Madge Dumpling.

Hello Rubble Clubbers, new and old, this is Madge Dumpling, Quarrymistress, pet rock whisperer and Chairman of the Rubble Club of Undergrowby welcoming all you invisible pet rock owners and your invisible rocky little pets to another family get-together here in the parlour of the Stone Quarry. As usual I am  speaking to you through my two inch wide magic laptop surrounded by my senior pet rocks and a roomful of Rubble Clubbing Undergrowby gnomes, (the Growbies) and the only way we can ever know if we are talking to ourselves is if you write back to us with your own personal gossip. I suspect there are hundreds of you out there but only a handful of you ever write back to us. Still, those few who do are enough to prove to us that cyber spacemen do exist and are amongst us all the time, coming and going through the magic laptop, helping yourselves to the invisible parts of the buffet, ordering pet rocks through the website and learning my top tips for pet rock care and management, like the caring, intelligent, pet rock-friendly life forms that you are.

Linda from Kilmarnoch, one of our best letter writers, keeps finding new homes for pet rock families in the magnificent Rocky Headlands of Scotland. She travels far and wide on buses and coaches (much like myself) in her full-time quest for desirable homes for the next batch of orphans to be born. Only the best of the best will do for Linda. Her latest adoptive family have even provided their pet rock with its own phone so it can listen in to its owner’s conversations. That is, of course, every pet rock’s dream, and one that rarely comes true, but now, thanks to Linda, anything on a pet rock’s wish list is possible. The unstoppable Linda goes off pet rock adoptioneering through wind, rain and hurricanes, and has caught a terrible cough which is keeping her naughty pet rock up all night. The naughty pet rock will not mind, Linda, he will be glad of you thoughtfully giving him something new to scowl about. No, it is you I am worrying about in this case Linda.

Luckily for you, Linda, there is an ancient pet rock therapy especially for the relief of coughs, and I will share it with you in gratitude for your service to pet rocks.

Take a nice round lumpy pet rock in one hand and stretch out the opposite arm, thumb uppermost. Place the pet rock in the upper part of the elbow crease in the little hollow just above the sinews in the midline of the crease. When you snuggle the pet rock down into the hollow and bend your arm at right angles as if your arm were in a sling, the pet rock will find the exact spot for you. Press the pet rock down as far into the hollow as you can and close your elbow around it for as long as you can. It is a magic cooling point for relieving heat and draining agitation in the lungs, and is perfect for night coughs because you can just fall asleep with your little rocky in your elbow if you like, as I can remember doing once or twice, because I, like you, Linda, have had my share of coughs, but that was long ago before I moved to Blackpool, where the sun dries up the phlegm like a treat.

And so on to business. This is the Fathers’ Day weekend, when all the children bring their fathers to the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, to fix them up with whatever they want from my well-stocked Pet Rock Emporium. Fathers are such unselfish creatures, aren’t they? They just refuse to say what they want all the time and the children are left having to figure out which pet rocks to get them. Sometimes, fathers even refuse to come into the shop at all and the children have to spend ages picking them out some tasteful, father-friendly items from amongst the pet rocks and their accessories. Only when the kids have amassed a counter full of stuff, so much stuff that Granny Gray, my shopkeeper, has to get her best glasses on to add it all up, does the father, spotting it all, finally rush in, get his wallet out to put a stop to their never-ending generosity, and pretend he never wanted anything in the first place. That’s fathers for you though. Pet rock fathers are just as unselfish. If you are wondering what to get for your baby rocks to give their pet rock fathers(the tall slim ones), I can tell you there is nothing they would rather have to complement their fatherliness than homeless orphan to bring in to their family, and perhaps a rock cake and a cup of tea of their own, and their own personal pet rocking chair where they can sit and pretend to be me, telling the orphans stories of the olden days when they were lads rolling down the mountainside to the sea before the orphans were even thought of.

That reminds me, before the summer kicks in and I have no time for anything but work, work, work, paddling along the edge of the sea picking out rock samples, like the unstoppable force that I am, I had better write down another one of my traditional pet rock bedtime stories for you. Although your pet rocks never tire of them, you must be getting sick of Alf the Elf and Miss Tick by now. I shall go and get my writing pad out and sit in the back yard for a few days, doing another story for you in my best hand-writing. So for now I will leave you to tuck into the buffet and have a nice game of hide and seek. It is too hot for line-dancing until later when the sun goes down. Until next week, I remain your invisible friend and dutiful chairman, Madge Dumpling.

Hello Rubble Clubbers. This is your Chairman, Madge Dumpling, Quarry-mistress and pet rock expert, speaking to you from the small but homely Stone Quarry of Undergrowby, the Headquarters of the Rubble Club. Bring your little rockies indoors with you. Go straight through to the gravel-strewn patio beyond the kitchen where I have prepared a breathtaking buffet for you and your little rockies. It is so hot outside because of these everyday Blackpool heatwaves, I have gone the extra mile and made you an outdoor snow scene picnic for this week’s buffet. Isn’t it lovely? Nice and cooling. I will let you in on my top secret white artificial snow-like ingredient….(don’t worry,…it’s organic)…I have crumbled a few lumps of top-quality dried-up china clay into dust and sprinkled it all over the rock cakes, and dabbed a bit on the end of my nose to match, to cover up the sunburn. If you have no top-quality china clay, chalk would do. Bob the Scottish Tea Boy is concocting some special white tea to go with it, but he never shares his recipes, so don’t ask, just have a sniff and guess what Scottish ingredients it may contain.

In Scotland, which is the land of angels and mountains, (which are, of course, your pet rocks’  ancestors), they have tea-making factories, where Bob must have done his training, called distilleries. We call them tea rooms here in Blackpool. The Scottish tea’s fumes are so strong, apparently, that the angels who live above the mountain tops of High Heaven (see the Undergrowby Map if you doubt it) only have to sniff the air above Scotland to get a taste of it, according to Linda from Kilmarnoch, my Deputy Head Prefect and Chief Knitter. She knows because she lives there and travels around on coaches (like myself),  (sending me lovely postcards from her travels. Thank-you, Linda!) and  handing out pet rocks to anyone else she can find who happen to be called Linda, like herself.

There have been complaints that Rubble Clubbers cannot find their way to the Rubble Club because something has been going wrong with the web-site. Grandad Gray says he has fixed it, so I hope he has, otherwise I am talking to myself, as I sometimes fear that I do, here in the  invisible world of Cyber space, where you never really know who is , or isn’t listening. Linedancer has a secret entrance of her own, luckily, because she is an expert secret entrance maker. If only there were more like you, Linedancer, inventive, creative and determined to go that extra mile in the line of duty to pet rocks everywhere. Most of us need it to be easy and straightforward however, and I have told Grandad Gray in no uncertain terms to stop making it ridiculously hard for people to get to the meetings! Especially now I have gone to the trouble of making a snow scene buffet in the back yard!

This week, visitors to the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool will be gasping with delight at the new range of baby pet rock day-furniture I have created. There are tiny couches, like the one in my parlour, and easy chairs to fit baby pet rocks when they are up and about in the day-time. There is also a dining table with six pet rock stools and a high chair. Whoever buys that, when they have stocked it with mini rock cakes, will no doubt be copying my ideas and sprinkling pretend snow all over it.The latest batch of grumpy pet rocks and their grumpy children are scowling away in the naughty corner, deterring their prospective owners the best they can, but it seems nothing can deter naughty pet rock owners. The naughty pet rocks are in great demand, whether they like it or not, by kind-hearted sun-drenched Blackpool-visiting Rubble Clubbers.There is now a Rubble Club Notice Board in the shop, on which I have stuck Linda from Kilmarnoch’s latest postcard and John, Jacob and Julie’s pet rock collection photos. One of J., J., and J’s photos is of a pet rock posing for the camera next to its pet stick insect. J., J., and J. have bought lots of pets for their pet rocks. I have been there for a visit, and I was impressed with how well the pet rocks get on with creatures of all kinds, even fish, who love pet rocks dearly. I suppose the little rockies learned to speak fish language when they were in the sea with them before they were washed up on Blackpool beach. Sometimes I find rocks on mountain paths which have little fish and water snail pictures carved into themselves, as if they are wearing memories of long ago, when they were at the seaside on a Rubble Club holiday, before they retired to a mountain top. If they don’t hide away on mountain tops, someone would put them in a museum and call them fossils, and then they would never have a chance to be hatched out by me into the pet rocks they were always destined to become. A sad tale but true. Still, we know the lucky ones, don’t we, Rubble Clubbers? Some do have a happy ending, and today, here they are, gazing at my lovely snow scene and having fun together in the Blackpool sunshine.

And here I must leave you all while I go for a paddle along the edge of the sea, collecting specimens washed up by the tide and listening in to sunbathers’ conversations a I go.It is too hot for linedancing today, and my head prefect, Linedancer needs a rest once in a while. Linedancer and Linda, clink your tea cups together and have a nice chat about the prefecture in your charge. Until next week, I remain your faithful friend and sun-kissed chairman, Madge Dumpling.

This is Madge Dumpling, Chairman of the Rubble Club speaking to pet rocks and their devoted owners worldwide from the parlour of the Stone Quarry in the Rocky Headlands of the magical land of Undergrowby. As usual, I have provided a delicious buffet of gritty nibbles, rock cakes and Scottish seaweed tea, which Bob (my handsome tea boy) and I concocted between us for your delight. Dive in!

The pet rocks are meeting and greeting  their guests(your pet rocks) on the shelves beside the fireplace today, just for once, because the mantelpiece where they usually host the party is full of naughty pet rocks drying out from their hatching ordeal. I wished for rain last week and sure enough, it poured through the stone Quarry ceiling a few nights ago while I was hatching out a batch of rockies. The cold splashing shock turned their faces hideously sour with the shock. They will, of course, be grumpy for life now, their faces turned to stone by my Dumpling magic, and will have to live in the naughty corner or on the naughty step for ever. If you are lucky enough to attract one of them and can’t restst adopting it, I must warn you to keep grumpy rocks separate from the others or the grumpies will be refusung to eat, moaning and groaning, bullying, tantrumming and misbehaving in a way you would never normally expect from Undergrowby  pet rocks, who are as you know, the friendliest creatures on earth. Force grumpy rocks to socialise with the nice ones and there will be trouble. On the other hand please do not feel sorry for them when you isolate them or place them with others of their kind, because they are happy being miserable, and hate pleasant company anyway. A gang of them will be delighted to scowl away at the entrance of your home, deterring thieves and villains for you. You could stick a sign up “Security guard” or “Beware of the Rockweiler” beside them, as I do, to make them feel especially important.

As I am typing away on my magic laptop under the counter I just overheard an interesting conversation. Two Rubble Clubbers and one of them’s lovely, kind grandmother, on their weekly pet rock shopping expedition, were telling Granny Gray that they had tried to get into the Rubble Club on their computer and nothing had come up. Furious, I ran in to ask Grandad Gray, my web site expert, what’s going on and he promised to look into it and fix the problem immediately. I shall be watching him more closely from now on. Anyway, the lovely Rubble Clubber girls (who are one day going to be famous ice skaters) brought their entire pet rockery(which they take with them wherever they go, on the back seat of the car, like the truly dedicated pet rock owners that they are) into the shop to show Granny Gray. Through my spy hole under the counter I inspected it with delight. They had glued some pretty cardboard shoe boxes together to make an orphanage with separate rooms, a bedroom, a dining room, a grooming parlour and a garden. It was very beautiful but as far as I could see, there were no adult rocks to look after the baby rocks, so I whispered to Granny Gray to make sure they did not go home without at least one responsible adult each to take charge of their separate pet rockeries. No sooner had I said it than they picked out for themselves a big yellow female rock each, smiley like the sun and as luck would have it,(although they were not to know it,) fully-trained by myself in orphanage management. Good choice! Well done girls!

On to the postbag. Linda from Kilmarnoch sent me a lovely postcard from her coach trip around the Rocky Headlands of Scotland, where she lives, to the Rocky Headlands of Blackpool, where I live. I have always wanted a postcard of my own but the postman has always refused to give me one until now. He always pushes my ladder away rudely when I try to climb up into his bag to help myself. Thank you Linda, I will treasure it and show it off to my friends the pigeons on the Promenade, who will be very jealous.

I have also had letters from the lovely Eleanor, owner of Princess the pretty (and truly pampered) pet rock. She likes the pet rock bedtime stories but she is wondering how to get into the Rubble Club. Well, Eleanor, if you are reading this, you are already here. Unfortunately, you are too big to get your human body through the doorway of my Stone Quarry Cottage, which in the real world is discreetly buried under a pile of rubble in a back yard in Blackpool. That is why we hold the Rubble Club meetings here in this magical cyber space, where bodies are not needed because when we are here we all become invisible and we are all the same size. To get here, you only need to find a wizard to make you a magical instrument called a computer and someone to show you how to find the doorway to the cyber space of the internet and then type in my address, therubbleclub.co.uk. To read my commentaries on the meetings and words of wisdom to pet rock owners, click on my picture, or “Madge’s Ramblings”. If you are having trouble you can telephone Grandad Gray on 01253 353800. ( by the way, I am pleased you like your prefect’s badge. I bet Princess likes it too and feels much safer knowing she is owned by a proper Rubble Club Prefect.) I have not been round to your house yet, Eleanor, to visit Princess in her pink bed. You see, to do that I have to be spying under the counter at the exact moment when you come into the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, then I can get one of my pigeon friends (who perch on the roof across the road waiting for rock cake crumbs) to follow you home. Then later, in exchange for a handful of crumbs, I will be guided straight back to where you live and if your door is open, (and especially if you have one of those handy gnome flaps on your back door) I will be popping in to see you when you least expect it. So far, I have failed to be there when you have been shopping for your pet rock accessories. Well you see, I can’t be everywhere and these days I’m as busy as a bee in the Blackpool sunshine, out and about looking for rock specimens and useful bits and bobs for the rockery, news gathering, pet rock hatching, inventing new rock cake recipes, pet rock whispering, I hardly have time for spying under the counter any more. That’s why, without me watching her, Granny Gray is getting away with wasting time playing the Undergrowby map game with the customers instead of tidying up the pet rock shelves and getting people to spend, spend, SPEND! So, Rubble Clubbers, if you find your way to the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, steer well clear of that map game on  your way over to choose your pet rock stuff, then  get your purse full of money out and dump it on the counter straight away before Granny Gray tries to steer you over to the magic wands or distract you with her gossiping.

I have a problem. The donkeys are back on the beach again, letting people ride on them, but my ladder is not long enough for me with my basket of pet rocks, who are itching for a donkey ride, to get up onto them and nobody will help me. In exchange for a few rock cakes I ask the donkeys for a ride and they say okay Madge, get up into the saddle with your pet rocks, but the donkey man and lady just refuse to look in my direction. I stand there, dropping hints with my little ladder propped against the donkey’s knees, but they take no notice. It’s as if I were invisible. So, Rubble Clubbers if you find yourself on the beach in the donkey ride queue when I am there, please be kind enough to pick me up and put me and my rockies on your knee for a free ride.Thank you.

And now I must go. Linedancer, my Head Prefect, it’s that time now. Please organise the members into a line behind the couch with their pet rocks and teach them how to do a complicated grapeviney linedance, so no one notices me slipping away. There will be no shimmying in the line dance today, sadly, because I will not be here to supervise it. Perhaps next week, when I return. Until then, I remain your reliable Chairman and busily escaping little friend, Madge Dumpling.