Rubble Club Archives

 Hello Rubble Clubbers. This is Madge Dumpling, your hard-working chairman, in foggy Blackpool, wishing you a happy end to the month of January.  I can hardly see the rocks on the beach for the fog, so I have taken to collecting cocktail umbrellas in the pub, and having adventures of other kinds. It’s lucky my pet rocks are entertaining themselves, playing I spy with each other, hoping I will not suggest going for a walk in the freezing fog. They are thinking about Valentine’s Day and wondering who might be sending them a love token.(It will be me, but they never guess!) If your pet rocks have taken to re-arranging themselves next to their favourites on the shelf prior to Valentine’s Day, be vigilant and take notes about who likes who before rearranging them back again(if you are a spoil-sport, or suffer from overcrowding), because it will soon be the breeding season.

I am glad the prefects are entertaining each other merrily on the couch. Help yourselves to the buffet….biscuits! Don’t worry, they are not Fox’s biscuits, they are my own home-made rabbit-shaped rock biscuits. By the way, did you win any pet rock knitwear from our Chief Knitter, Linda, Suz?

There may not be a Gnewspaper this week, it depends if I can find time . You see, foolishly, I keep taking on new jobs, on top of my full-time job. Read all about it in the story below. I’ll be back next week, dear Rubble Clubbers.

Hello, come in, Rubble Clubbers, put your pet rocks over there together with the others on the mantelpiece and stop chattering for a moment while I deliver the Chairman’s Report. My postbag is full to overflowing with happy little letters from you lovely Rubble Club members talking the way I like to hear, full of enthusiasm and concern for your cute little pets. Keep it up, Rubblers.

Molly, our new prefect, is wondering if I stock pet rock berets. Well, there may be something like a beret in Auntie Hatty’s hat shop, but I don’t know for sure. Since you expressed an interest I have told Auntie Hatty to make a few and set them out on a stone tray ready to go into the kiln, but maddeningly they will not be ready by this weekend because I have to wait till the Undergrowby Pottery kiln is full  (of lots of other unnecessary stuff that has been made)  before Granny Gray, the Undergrowby potter, will set it going. I can’t just hatch hats out by the fireside with my Dumpling Magic like I do the pet rocks you know, Suz and Molly, and if I got a kiln of my own to speed things up, that would be another job for me to do, and where would I get the time? After all, as you know, I have my pet rock whispering to do, and anyway, without her pottery duties, whatever would Granny Gray do with her time? She can’t help being old and doddery, but even though I shout at the top of my voice “Get a move on for heaven’s sake!” and keep poking her with my ladder, she takes so long making enough to fill the kiln (in between her shopkeepering duties that I give her), that I cannot predict how long it will be before the berets arrive in the shop.  Sorry.

Suz, your pet rocks will remember being in the car last year. They remember everything. They are known for it.

The shop will be open every day, but it’s always best to phone because doddery old shopkeepers sometimes forget to turn the OPEN sign round when they open the door in the morning, even if they remember to open up at all. If you come and the shop door is locked, ring the doorbell and eventually, someone will come. If you are determined enough, you will get in. Life for a pet rock collector can be full of such tests of endurance and devotion.

No, don’t tuck in to the mouth-watering buffet yet, Rubble Clubbers. First, the Head Prefect, Linedancer will lead the pet rock linedancing session while I find this week’s copy of the Undergrowby Gazette for you to read. Yes, it’s time we had some rehearsals, because the Maypole-in-the-Hub spring linedancing competitions are not that far away now. We can win this!  Linedancer, it’s over to you! I shall return next week, Rubble Clubbers, and till then I remain your very own chairman and invisible friend, Madge Dumpling.

Hello and welcome to my warm underground parlour here in wonderful wintery Undergrowby, in the north of Blackpool. This is Madge Dumpling, your all-seeing, all-knowing Chairman, here to help with all your rocky little issues. Thank you for your lovely letters, Rubble Clubbers. Suz and Linda are keeping the snug, gravel-strewn prefects’ couch warm and saving a space in the middle for the Head Prefect, Linedancer who will be here as soon as she is feeling better.

This week I want to talk to you about FEEDING your pet rocks. The main thing is, if you want your pet rock to be on top form, remember that they like a change. You don’t want them to get bored with their feeding bowls, so keep it fresh, and keep them guessing!  Anything rocky, gritty, sandy, crunchy and full of roughage will do. They’ll eat it raw, as long as fresh drinking water is always available (Please note, as they drink through their bottoms, they prefer to sit in their drinking water in the middle of summer, but in winter they like to have a quick bath in a drop of hot tea in a saucer. )

If you insist on baking cakes for them instead of buying them my own gnome made rock cakes from my shop, bake the dish till it’s as hard as a rock or they won’t be able to digest it.  Better still, mix some assorted rocky ingredients up with some food colouring, salt and Scottish oatmeal.  Add cement or plaster, mix to a mush with water, plop tiny portions of it onto an old newspaper and let it set till it’s hard. No need to bake. Crumble a portion into the pet rock’s dish, little and often.

If they haven’t polished all their food off in a week, it means they are bored with it. Replace  it with something fresh, and when I say ‘fresh’ I mean ‘different’ (bag the old stuff up and put it out again in a few weeks,….you can’t waste food!)

And now for the Undergrowby Gazette. I will leave you to read it for hours. I shall return next week. As ever, you can rely upon me, Madge Dumpling, your famous friend and dutiful Chairman.

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Hello, Rubble Clubbers from snowy Blackpool, which is temporarily a world-famous skiing resort where people can come to ski and sunbathe at the same time. The pigeons are stuck to the roof with the ice and I can not get any gossip from them because their beaks are frozen and stuck together. Why don’t I go and find my own gossip, you might wonder. Well, I have not got any skis so I am having to stay at home till the skiing season is over. My gnews reporting will just have to wait. Therefore, sadly,  the Undergrowby Gazette may not come out till mid-week this week, if at all, and instead I am offering you part one of a set of important training instructions for new pet rock owners, of whom there must be hundreds out there(thanks to the Christmas spaceman’s delivering them all for me to good girls and boys). Here I am to the rescue, all you new owners!

My postbag has been full this week thanks to Linda from Kilmarnoch and her new little soon-to-be-prefect, Suz, who have been chatting away to each other merrily. Linda, the Rubble Club’s Chief Knitter,  has knitted Suz a new cardigan, socks and scarf while they have been waiting for me to arrive. Well, here I am now, Suz, serving the delicious crunchy refreshments and I am thanking you in person for your lovely bright shiny letters. You asked me about eco rocks. Well, Suz, I don’t remember saying anything about them. Did I ? When? You couldn’t be confusing them with the eco wands, could you, which are another thing altogether, they have nothing to do with pet rocks and therefore to me they are very boring indeed? Stick to pet rocks, Suz. Don’t get distracted! I shall be waiting for you under the counter when you come to Blackpool, to steer you away from the eco wands, especially if the skiing season is still on and I am still housebound. Meanwhile I insist that you keep writing to me Suz. I like it. Perhaps some pictures too?

I know, I know, enough of me talking, Rubble Clubbers.  You are all bored, I expect,  with the lack of pictures so I’m off to make way for them! Till next week I remain your knowlegable Chairman and snowed-in friend, Madge Dumpling.

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Hello Rubble Clubbers and a Happy Gnew  Year to you all! I am back from my seasonal visit to Kilmarnoch where I was treated like royalty by Rubble Club Deputy Head Prefect, Linda and world-famous Rubble Club Tea-maker, Bob. My nose is still red, as it always is when I drink Bob’s speciality tea. I think I must be alergic to one of his secret ingredients, but no matter how hard I try to bribe him with pet rocks, he will not give me the recipes.

I am delighted to announce that my Head Prefect, Linedancer, is alive and well and has promised to come to the next Annual General Meeting at the gynn. Any more promises from any of you, Rubble Clubbers?

As for my part-time gnewspaper-reporting career, I did warn you that I would be relying on my friends the pigeons from the Promenade for my festive gnews this week, and sure enough, the front page story is all about them, (but I do feature alongside as a co-star,  which, I admit, was a little fictional, and put there purely to keep you interested.) Enjoy! (I’ll try to do better next week, for the sake of all those new pet rock owners out there who are in need of my factual gnews-reporting expertise to help them cope with their new little pets.  But remember, Rubble Clubbers, that I have to replenish my pet rock stocks as well, and that takes priority. Still, they don’t call me Madge Dumpling for nothing! My Dumpling Magic will see me through!)   Till next week I remain your red-nosed Chairman and over-stretched little friend, Madge Dumpling.

o