Rubble Club Archives

Hello to all pet rocks and their lovely owners. This is the talented, world-famous Madge Dumpling, Chairman of the Rubble Club, and over there is the fabulously crunchy rock cake buffet. There is a big pot of Surprise Blend tea, so drink away! Since Undergrowby moved to Blackpool, my tea varieties have taken a creative turn, thanks to all the holiday ingredients hanging around in dark corners everywhere.  Speaking of holidays, the British pet rock holiday season is, sadly, past its peak now, Rubble Clubbers. The weather is getting cooler and soon that favourite event of pet rocks everywhere, the  Blackpool Illuminations, will be the only traditional cold-weather holiday destination  worth seeking-out by devoted  pet rock owners. Meanwhile, there is one pet rock sailing round the world in the lap of luxury in search of good weather and wandering around in foreign parts with his rich owner, Cameron, who has sent me some holiday snaps from the lovely foreign land of Thailand. Sadly, it appears to be the only pet rock around. Being a social creature, almost a pack animal, as pets go, it will disappointed with the lack of rubbling pals in foreign parts. It will be glad to get back home to its friends and family. Meanwhile, Cameron, well done for letting us all know where you and your little pet are. Next time, take a larger party of rocks please. Thailand is obviously a pet rockless land and you could fix that single handedly if you had the will. I expect you are reading this on your magic laptop and making sure your little rocky gets at least a glimpse of my reassuringly familiar face here at the Rubble Club meeting. Come home safe!

While we and our little pets are basking in the last remaining rays of the Undergrowby summer sun, whether we like it or not, we have to be thinking about renewing our little pets’ winter wardrobe, because as pet rock owners, it is our duty to be prepared. On that note I would like to bring your attention to gloves of all kinds. If you ever find any odd single gloves dropped on the street,(as I often do)  you will see that they are made of useful little finger-sized tubes, perfect fits for pet rock body suits and the chopped-off fingertips make cute, warm little hats. Even rubber gloves can be used in this way for raincoats and rain hoods, incontinence pants or to protect them when you take them on those splashy Pleasure Beach rides like that pet rock favourite, the Valhalla.  These glove-finger outfits are perfect for the poor (like me), who cannot afford the famous ‘Linda From Kilmarnoch’s’ designer pet rock knitwear.

Speaking of the Pleasure Beach, my friends the pigeons and I and my three best behaved pet rocks were there this week playing our favourite game which we call ‘Beat the Sweeper’. Thousands of holiday-makers drop tons of litter every hour wherever they go and lots of it is either edible or useful. The pigeons like to dine out on all the dropped chips and I like to fill my ‘useful bag’ full of bits and bobs, like gloves, cocktail umbrellas, string, rubber bands, etc., but there are wicked sweepers at the Pleasure Beach who, like the complete nuisances that they are,  keep sweeping it up before we can sort through it properly. We work as a team, the pigeons and I, spotting the sweepers from air and land and trying to beat them to the stuff we need. It is exhausting but truthfully, it is fun. When we need a rest, we jump on one of the kiddies’ rides and try to be the last to feel sick, which is our next favourite game. I always let the pigeons win. the pet rocks love their days out at the Pleasure Beach. If your pet rocks are misbehaving and naughty, promise them a trip to the Pleasure Beach, beating the sweeper, if they behave nicely. You will have no trouble from then on. That’s another top tip for you, Rubblers.

I have an appointment in a moment, fitting out a family of rocks with new hats, so I have to leave you now to smarten myself up. Enjoy the buffet, and each other, until we meet again. My doors will be open again next week and until then I remain your friendly pet rock expert, Chairman and well-meaning friend, Madge Dumpling.

Here we are again in the Stone Quarry Cottage in the hidden, magical land of Undergrowby and I am Madge Dumpling, Quarrymistress, pet rock whisperer and world-famous rock cake maker. I am all yours for the afternoon, here to answer your pet rock-related questions and share my words of wisdom with the world-wide membership. This week I notice that there are some new faces dotted around the room. Lovely new members, that’s what we like, isn’t it, Rubblers? New and old, we don’t care, do we? Speaking of old members, welcome back to my head prefect, Linedancer who has been suffering from a serious mystery illness but now she is better and back on the couch again to supervise the linedancing. Thank goodness! Standards have been dropping in her absence, but we can expect great things  from the pet rock linedancing team from now on. I fear we may have to forget entering in the international linedancing tournaments this year, judging from last week’s tumbling-off-the-table episode, but that’s not to say we can’t start training for next year. The pet rock linedancers now have cowboy hats and stars in their eyes and will not be stopped, anyway.

I was planning a coach trip to somewhere this week, but I can’t go because my husband Malcolm has beaten me to it. He has abandoned me to do all the work on my own. He and Bob the tea boy have dutifully gone off together on a washing-up and housework convention in Scotland, at the home of Bob’s tea-making friend, Johnny Walker who, like Bob himself, lives in Kilmarnoch. I think Johnny runs a tea shop. Linda, Bob’s  wife and my deputy head prefect,( famous for her exclusive pet rock knitwear), has sent me a postcard with a picture of (Bob’s?) Scottish kilt with its furry sporran(the Scottish name for a pet rock bag) and a little glass of amber-coloured gravel tea and written jokily in Scottish it says “A wee dram!”, (which probably means “pet rock wee in a little drum”, …but it’s obviously just tea, because pet rock wee is so tiny it dries up before you  can collect it, as we all know). Still, thank you Linda, it was an excellent joke! I shall put it up on the Rubble Club notice board in the shop immediately. All the Scottish visitors who speak fluent Scottish will understand it and laugh.

Linda and Linedancer are planning a Rubble Club get-together in the winter when Linda comes to Blackpool for some more pet rocks. Anyone else who wants to come will have to write to me and say so. Many people have said they wish they could write to me but they can’t work out which buttons to press on their laptops. Keep trying, Rubblers. You can work it out! Press ’send a message to Madge’ or email me at madgedumpling@undergrowby.co.uk

Urgent News! Search Party Needed!  There is a pet rock lost somewhere on a train between Blackpool and London. Its distraught owner called the Magic Wand Factory Shop on her mobile phone to report it missing and requested a replacement, complete with hat, biscuits and two spare hats for her brothers’ pet rocks. Rubble Clubbers, could you all catch as many trains as you can between Blackpool and London and search for the poor little pet. Thank you. If you find it you can keep it for your trouble.

The Undergrowby Autumn Show will soon be held in the playing fields of Seventh Heaven. There is a pet rock section as usual this year, and I am busy making rosettes and constructing the winners’ pedestals. The pet rocks are bursting ith anticipaton, wondering what they might win. I like to try to make sure all the pet rocks win something every year. No one likes to be a loser, especially me, and what’s good enough for me is good enough for the pet rocks. If you want to obtain one of my winners’ pedestals complete with tiny pet rock rosettes you will have to come to the magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, or you can make your own out of matchboxes, cardboard, paper, yogurt pots, etc.. The winners’ pedestals need to be clearly labelled ‘Best in Show’, ‘Most Obedient’, Rock of the Day’, ‘Best Dancer’, Rock of the Week’, Rock of the Year’, ‘Naughtiest’, Dirtiest, Cleverest, Quietest, Cheekiest, etc. etc., and enough pedestals have to be made to accommodate all your pet rocks. Decide when the show will be on, and print out tickets for friends and family, for which you can charge lots of money. Get the fruit and vegetables out of the fridge and give them prizes as well. Make a proper prizegiving event of it. Don’t forget to give yourself a prize for something you know you are good at, a nice big red rosette with ‘1st prize’ on it. You will have to provide some entertainment between the prizegivings, so people get their money’s worth. Sing a lovely song, get  your best pet rock linedancers to do a performance, demonstrate perfect pet rock grooming techniques and flowerhead pet rock hat making, etc, etc.. These are the kind of things everybody likes and expects to see at the Autumn Show. Bake a nice buffet like the one I always provide, rock cakes and gravel tea,  and all will be well. Take some photos and send me one for the notice board. Thank you.

John, Jacob and Julie from Farnworth, Bolton, Rubble Club prefects, stick insect breeders, rat-lovers and favourite friends of Granny Gray, my shopkeeper, have already got lots of their pet rock photos displayed on the Rubble Club notice board, and they kindly brought me a new photo of some multi-coloured pet rock portraits they have recently sculpted in plastic clay. J, J and J, perhaps you could open something like Louis Tussaud’s pet rock lookalike exhibition centre in Farnworth?  People could bring their pet rocks for a day out to see all the sculptures and Julie’s pet rock watercolour portraits.  It would be world-famous in no time. You could have a stick insect adoption department by the front door, because we all know how well pet rocks and stick insects get on with each other. Thank you J, J and J.

And with that I will get back to my mountain of work and leave you in Linedancer’s care to have a little dance and chat amongst yourselves. In the absence of Bob and Malcolm, could you appoint a washer-up from amongst you? I’d do it myself, but as you know, I have my pet rock whispering to do.  Until next week then, pet rock lovers and your little rocky darlings, I wish you well and I remain your self-sacrificing chairman and overworked little friend, Madge Dumpling.

In you come, Rubblers! This is Madge Dumpling here again, chairing the meeting and tucking you all neatly into my tiny parlour. I expect you are thrilled to be here for another get together with other like-minded pet rock owners and their  hundreds of little rocky pals. It will be a short meeting this week because I am rushed off my feet, working my fingers to the bone, clapping and chanting and rocking my chair up and down, up and down! You see, the usually glorious Blackpool weather has temporarily given way to a spot of gloom and doom, so I have been busy hatching newborn pet rocks this week, hoping for a nice batch of grumpy, naughty pet rocks to come out of the bad weather, as they often do. I used to think it was a technical error on my part when grumpy faces accidentally occurred (shocked by the rain seeping through my leaky roof and dripping on them while they are on the hearth, hot and still evolving). Whoever would adopt them with those bad tempered expressions, I would wonder? No one in their right mind, I feared. It seems, however, that the relentlessly happy Blackpool visitors can see the funny side of a grumpy face. For that strange reason the grumpies are currently in great demand. My naughty corner, (the corner of the shelf where the naughties live in the Pet Rock Emporium in the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool,) is nearly empty. People are dashing in and snatching them up the minute they go on the shelf. Thank goodness for a quick spot of rain and wind, so I can hatch a few more out. I had better make the best of it because it won’t be here for long. They don’t call it Sunny Blackpool for nothing.

Hurry up now and eat your rock cakes, Rubblers, and drink your gravel tea. Get your little pets together and tell them to be quick and swap their silent gossip and knowing glances, because the sun will soon be out and then it will be too late. Oh, go on,…have a little rubbling line-dancing session round the table if you must, but whatever you do, make it speedy!

On to business swiftly. I am proud to announce that I am (once again) the winner of the sandcastle building competition. No one else entered (as usual), no doubt because my world-wide reputation has reached everyone’s ears and they realise it will take years of training before they dare compete against me. I see them all practising away on Blackpool beach but so far I have seen nothing I need worry about. I have made myself a badge as a prize, and the pet rock paraphernalia I was saving for the actual prize will just go on sale in the shop instead.

Linda from Kilmarnoch, thank you for the cheerful postcards of Scotland. Granny Gray is looking forward to seeing you in the winter and if you bring along your buckets and spades I will personally supervise you in your Scottish sandcastle-building technique.  Get your free bag of brown plaster from Granny Gray and if you are brave enough perhaps you can enter next year’s pet rock sandcastle competition.

Right, that’s it. The rain bucket is plopping more and more slowly.  The rain must be stopping! Quick! Move away from the fire right now! I need to get my rocking chair up to the hearth and place my rock samples around the hearth in their magical formation. I may have only a few seconds to work up a roomful of magic with my Dumpling chanting, clapping and rocking, so either be respectfully quiet and let me get on with it or file out politely in an orderly manner right away, Rubble Clubbers.

Next week, more news, more time, till then, keep on rocking! I remain your impatient friend and  miracle-working chairman, Madge Dumpling.

Come on in, Rubble Clubbers! The door is open and the fabulous rock cake buffet is not on the table but spread around the parlour here and there in the nooks and crannies. Help yourselves!  The buffet table is full of sand ready for the sand castle competition. I wonder who will be this year’s winner. Linda from Kilmarnoch, don’t bother rushing back from your coach travels around Scotland to enter the competition. I am enjoying your magical picture postcards of the Scottish mountains too much. There is so much Scottish scenery on the Rubble Club noticeboard it feels like that corner of the shop has been magically transported to Scotland. Indeed somehow it is acting like a magic spell, attracting hundreds of Scottish visitors into the shop to adopt new pet rocks. Many pet rocks’ dreams of moving to Scotland have come true this week.

Granny Gray, my over-sentimental old shopkeeper, wishes to be remembered to all the lovely Scottish visitors who have been in the shop and adopted their first pet rocks this week. They are too numerous to mention by name, but they know who they are. Granny loves you! Keep on being nice and Scottish!

This lovely sunny afternoon the Blackpool Promenade will be full of thousands of visitors watching the aeroplanes showing off, flying around in the sky over the sea. My friends the pigeons and the seagulls are doing a little aerobatic display of their own this year to compete with the aeroplanes. I have made some little baskets to tie on their backs just big enough to hold two pet rocks each, so watch out for them. They are the first pet rock pilots to fly in an aerobatic display.  Don’t worry, Rubble Clubbers, I will tie them in well and I have attached long yellow ribbons to the baskets on which I have embroidered “JOIN THE RUBBLE CLUB!”. The TV cameras will probably be there (pretending to film the aeroplanes but secretly  hoping to catch a glimpse of me), so never mind the aeroplanes, watch out for the pigeons with the long yellow ribbons trailing behind them. Wherever they come to land, I will not be far off, recovering the pet rock pilots and posing for the cameras. I will be wearing my glamorous yellow hat  with its two red ribbons as usual.

While I have been paddling up and down the edge of the sea this week, hard at work looking for rock samples, I have noticed some very strange looking people with long spiky hair and rings growing out of their faces, doing the same. They, however, were drunk, and could not carry as many rock samples as me because their hands were too full of beer cans. Drunk people do not find me as invisible as most and are always very chatty with me. They could probably be talked into adopting pet rocks, if I were to let them, but I won’t. They have to do the right thing and get them from my Pet Rock Emporium in the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, and to find that, you have to be sober because it is a bit off the beaten track. You couldn’t just stumble off the beach and find it by accident, mistaking it for a pub. Anyway, these spiky people told me all their gossip. They have been visiting a Punk Music Festival, whatever that is,  in the beautiful Winter Gardens, and recommended that I go along and listen to some  lovely Punk Music with them. If only I would stiffen the ribbons on my hat and make them stand up in the air like four sticks, I could blend in well with the rest of the audience, they said. Sadly, I did not have time, I was too busy doing my usual work and also collecting sand and shells and preparing the parlour for the sandcastle competition. And anyway, who needs Punk Music when I can sing my Dumpling chant as I go and provide my own music? I pointed that out to them and gave them a little pet rock song entitiled, “Go to sleep, little rockies”. They were either too rude or too drunk to listen and wandered off in a daze, no doubt looking for the Magic Wand Shop to get themselves some pet rocks.

Nobody has arrived to enter the sandcastle competition, after all my hard work. So it doesn’t go to waste, I had better begin building one myself. It looks like I am going to be the winner again because as usual, I have got a head start. Unless someone has been secretly practising hard at speed-building, the prize is mine. I could be surprised yet, however. Someone might just send me a photo of their entry and knock me off my pedestal. I am a slow builder, so you could pip me to the post if you start now. Hoping to be inundated with entries, I am going for a wander round to let you get on with it. Until next week, then, Rubble Clubbers, I remain your devoted chairman, pet rock whisperer and faithful friend, Madge Dumpling.

Hello Rubble Clubbers, new and old! This is your friend and Chairman, Madge Dumpling dutifully speaking to you from Blackpool, in the parlour of the Stone Quarry of the Rocky Headlands of Undergrowby. (It’s well-hidden,…don’t try to find it.) This week has been the week of the Glasgow Fair, which is a very lucky time for pet rocks who dream of being adopted by Scottish Rubble Clubbers and transported to the magical Rocky Headlands of Scotland. This Glasgow Fair week, many pet rocks’ wildest dreams have finally come true. Off to Scotland they have gone!  Luckily, pet rocks are very brainy and are quick to learn foreign languages, like Scottish. I myself am getting the hang of it too, learning as I listen in to conversations while sitting under the benches on the Blackpool Promenade.That is where I first learned about the Glasgow Fair.

It seems that there is a strange magical fair in Glasgow, Scotland, which lasts for two weeks every year. Nobody does any work while the fair is on. They are too busy taking their pet rocks to the fair. If, for some strange reason, they have no pet rocks, they catch the bus to (that friendly annexe of Scotland), Blackpool to get themselves some. It might take them a few days to find my Pet Rock Emporium in the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, Blackpool, so they cheer themselves up by having a nice bag of chips on the beach and a few cocktails at the hotels in the evenings. Indeed, only the more determined and intelligent amongst them ever do find it, apparently. Despite my shouting at them and pointing them to the pet rocks, many go home on the coach empty-handed, clutching a stick of Blackpool Rock by mistake. Well, Rubblers, it does take a special kind of magical intuiton to get into the Rubble Club, after all. We wouldn’t have it any other way, would we? However, I can’t help wondering how many of them might have found my shop if the Glasgow Fair had lasted a bit longer. If it went on for ever, it would be even better. As a keen student of Scottish culture and a seasoned traveller, I decided to go to Glasgow and see the fair for myself. I have an arrangement with a coach driver who brings coach parties from Scotland to Blackpool and back once a week. He reserves a spot for me in the luggage compartment in exchange for a bag of my speciality rock cakes and a flask of Tea Boy Bob’s tartan-wrapped tea ingredient.

So off I went with my collapsible ladder and a basketful of pet rocks in their summer hats and umbrellas, thinking I would find plenty of friendly Scots eager to adopt them. There were no signposts to the fair, so I trudged around  asking passers-by for directions. Nobody took any notice of me. It was as if I were invisible! I think it must have been the ancient Glasgow Fair magic that made me invisible, so that I could not make it too easy for people to join the Rubble Club. The visit to Blackpool and the finding of the shop must remain part of the magical test. I could find no one who would listen to my idea of keeping the fair open for ever, so I came back home with my basket of disappointed little rockies, but luckily, the coach driver felt sorry for them and decided to adopt them, so it ended well for everyone.

I must now announce to the membership that this is sandcastle competition time again. Pet rock sandpits are usually cleaned out in the first week of August.  If your pet rocks have no sand-pit, shame on you! Make one immediately! An old margarine tub full of sand will do. Old worn-out sandcastles can be discarded and new sandcastles, bigger and better than last year’s can be built.  For those of you unfamiliar with the ancient art of pet rock sandcastle-building, it is the same as building full-sized sandcastles but in your pet rock’s sand-pit, not on the beach, and a stiffening ingredient is added so the sandcastles will not crumble up into the sand, but become a permanent climbing frame and adventure playground feature for your pet rocks all year long. The stiffening ingredient can be all sorts of things…glue, salty porridge, boiled salty corn-meal or brown plaster are my favourites. Brown plaster is my best favourite because it sets in a few hours and dries out nice and yellow, and it doesn’t go mouldy. Five times sand to brown plaster makes a nice mix. It stinks a bit when you mix it with water but once it is dry the smell disappears. If you live in Blackpool, call in at the shop and ask Granny Gray for some free plaster. I have bagged some up for her ready to give to you. Those tiny little milk pots that you get in Rosie’s Cafe up the road are good for making sand pies, and you can make flags with bits of coloured paper cut out of magazines glued onto cocktail sticks or dried flower stems from the weed patch. Decorate your castles with pebbles and shells and twinkly bits and bobs of your own and be sure to leave ledges and tunnels, windows and doorways  big enough for your pet rocks to sit in. Send me your sandcastle photos and I will give you a prize(pet rock stuff) for extraordinary effort. If you are the only entrant in the competition you will automatically win the star prize (even more pet rock stuff). Be lucky!

And now I must leave you because I have fallen behind with my work due to my Scottish travels, and I have a mountain of pet rock whispering to do, not to mention building the new sandcastles, so farewell dear friends, until next week. I remain your ever-dutiful chairman and wise little friend, Madge Dumpling.