Rubble Club Archives

Come on in, Rubble Clubbers. You have arrived at the Stone Quarry of Undergrowby (Rubble Club H.Q.) and I am your Chairman and world famous pet rock whisperer, Madge Dumpling.  I have opened the doors early this week because I can see that it is raining and you have all forgotten your umbrellas. Tut tut. I know, I know, no one could have foreseen this little rainy spell here in Blackpool where we hardly ever see the rain, (except at night when it doesn’t count), so I don’t blame you. However, it’s not just about you, is it? You have to think about your pet rocks and carry your umbrellas at all times because we don’t want them getting wet, do we? Expert gardeners like myself are not altogether unhappy about the rain of course. The nettles in my kitchen garden have been getting so dry that this unusual holiday weather is quite in order, indeed necessary. Nettles and dandelions need to be juicy, don’t they?

I have been inundated by competition entries again this week. They are all so wonderful that I cannot possibly choose between them, so I have decided that I am going to stick them all on the Rubble Club Notice board in the Magic Wand Factory Shop, near Gynn Square, Blackpool, for one week. Every time a customer comes in the shop, Granny Gray is going to ask them to pick which one they like best. At the end of the week the results will be counted and the winner will be announced at next week’s meeting.

Here are Lydia and Isaac’s entries

and here are Ellie’s entries

You see what I mean, Rubblers, they are amazing, aren’t they?

I wonder who is going to win the lucky toadstool ring? I had better not enter the competition myself this time because I am bound to win and I have got quite enough toadstool rings thank you very much. There will  be consolation prizes for everyone who entered for trying so hard and being clever enough to know which buttons to press. You can always make me happy by sending me your pet rock photos even when there is no competition on. I have a big family album with lots of empty pages and you and your pet rocks are all in my family now, Rubblers.

This week there is no room for the Gazette because of all the competition entries, and anyway, Grandad Gray reports that my newspaper painting stuff is out of action and fenced off from me till next week. Something or other, a very expensive paintbrush I think, or maybe a tool kit, has dropped off his computer and he can’t find it so he has sent for another new bit but it has to come in the post. Thank goodness for the competition entries or we would be bored to death.

Top tip for the week for those of you who have video cameras; pet rocks love being on the telly, so invent a nice TV programme for them to appear in. Mine like being in Big Brother. It doesn’t require them to learn scripts or have any special talents, you see. Try playing Big Brother with your pet rocks. You can be Big Brother.  One or two of them may become celebrities afterwards if the camera loves them, and if you are a good enough film-maker, they could even become world-famous like me. Send me your films if you can work out how to do it and I will get Grandad Gray to put them on the web site and on to the cinema-like computer screen in the shop window. At night, there will be crowds of visitors huddled under their umbrellas round the window watching Pet Rock Big Brother. I will be Davina Mc Dumpling the presenter if I can find a ladder long enough to climb up onto  the window display.

And so I will go and arrange my film set (and I expect you will be arranging yours). Be creative, Rubblers, as I know you always are and until next week I remain your busy little Chairman and faithful friend, Madge Dumpling.

Hello Rubble Clubbers wherever you are, this is Madge Dumpling, your chairman, speaking to you from my daytime Stone Quarry Cottage annexe, (my new caravan, an abandoned pram), which is temporarily hidden under a pile of rubble in the middle of Central Promenade. We are however not sunning ourselves beside the lucky suntanned Blackpool holidaymakers, we are below ground in Blackpool’s magical land of Undergrowby. Come on in if you can fit in, otherwise queue up nicely and wait for us all to set off down to the beach for a spectacular summer get-together. I just have to warm up the chips for the buffet (which my team of helpful pigeons have kindly gathered up for us from the promenade). I know you have all been looking forward to my usual fabulous rock cakes but my cooking arrangements here on  the promenade are limited to a smouldering pile of driftwood and chip papers with a flat slab on top, on which, (adjacent to my caravan and with a chimney built into the rubble for health and safety reasons), I am warming up the chips and sandy promenade tea( a new flavour, hope you like it!).

The competition entries have been flooding in, thank you , Rubble Clubbers. I am crying tears of delight at how beautiful they all are.

The first four entries were from our last competition winner, Sam, just returned from his holiday in Spain and the last two were from Suz who sent me these two adorable priceless pet rock paintings to add to my pet rock portrait gallery once I have had them framed. I dare say Suz had them painted by some world-famous artist because she knows what an art connoisseur I am. They will be displayed in the Magic Wand Factory Shop on Dickson Road, near Gynn Square, Blackpool, above the Rubble Club notice board, but they will not be for sale because they are now MINE. Thank you, Sam and Suz. There is just one more week before I do the judging so if you are entering,  get on  with it or you will have no chance of winning the lucky toadstool ring for your pet rocks.  Last week I showed you Lucy’s unforgettably delightful entry, if you remember. I wonder who will win??? I can’t decide yet.

It could still be you! Be quick!

Linedancer, Grandad Gray, my computer expert, tells me he failed to open two letters from your email address because they were from some impostor computer salesperson pretending to be you, and he was afraid there might have been a germ in them. Somebody has snatched your address and is trying to give us all a germ, Linedancer, so be careful or we’ll all end up shut in our bed cupboards fighting off germs like I was two weeks ago. You might have to change your address or steal it back or something. When he first started to tell me about it my heart leaped, thinking you were trying to enter the competition, but no, it was not you. But thank you and Suz and Linda for your kind messages congratulating me on my brave recovery. Thank you.

And so on to the Gazette. And farewell until next week, meanwhile I remain your Promenade-dwelling Chairman and smoke-blackened friend, Madge Dumpling.

Hello everyone, this is Madge Dumpling, your devoted Chairman, back on duty. Thanks to you, Rubble Clubbers, and your good wishes, I have finally conquered the dizzy sickly germ which was hovering around me last week. It started to attack me the moment I ran out of hag stones. Granny Gray, my incompetent shopkeeper, has been selling them faster than I can make them. (I can’t help thinking she has been giving them away as prizes  or something.) Anyway, like a fool I went and handed over my own personal favourite hag stones to keep her stocked up. Without them I suddenly felt quite alone and a germ immediately spotted its opportunity.  Single-handedly I was left to do battle with the germ and all my husband Malcolm could think of was to shut me in the bed cupboard so he didn’t catch it. Too ill to hatch out some more hag stones, I lay in the bed cupboard for a week with only a teapot full of gravel tea to keep me company, unselfishly keeping the germ away from everyone else. It was only Malcolm, reading out your magical letters to me through the closed bed-cupboard door that forced me to gather the strength to remember my responsibilities, ignore the germ, nip down to the beach, do my Dumpling magic and provide myself with a new army of trouble-eating hag stones. (Well, they weren’t going to make themselves, were they?) When I saw them all sitting there in a row along the hearth, their gaping mouths smiling at me, I knew they had guzzled the germ as it whizzed around the room, and very tasty it was to them. They had also snapped up my dizziness, another tasty morsel,  leaving me quite well again and back on duty.

And so on to the postbag. Suz says she is sending in a competition entry to Granny Gray, but so far it has not been received. ( Suz, I am nagging Grandad Gray to put the pet hag stones on the on-line shop so you can get one. Meanwhile, just ring Granny Gray with your details if you can’t wait and I will pick out a good one for you.) One competition entry has arrived, however,  from a beautiful Rubble Clubber called Lucy, who was the runner-up in  the last competition. Her gorgeous picture, see below,  features the runner-up pet rock house that she made for that competition. Granny Gray says there are other people who will be entering so I am keeping the competition running for this week and next. In case you have forgotten to enter, you have to send me a picture of at least one pet rock having a lovely time in an unusual place. It’s easy. If you can’t figure out which button to press to send me a message, my email address is www.madgedumpling@undergrowby.co.uk   (I think).    If you are struggling with the buttons, phone Grandad Gray on 01253 353800. You could win a fabulous fairy toadstool ring, (and we all know how magic they are) for your own personal favourite pet rock of the day to stand in the middle of the ring while it makes a wish. Special treats like fairy ring visits for good behaviour give your pet rocks a reason to behave nicely at all times.

Lucy’s entry.

Lucy is the first to enter, and for that effort she has already won a lucky toadstool, and might yet go on to win the whole competition.  I am thrilled with her picture and her cleverness at finding the right buttons to press to send it to me,(what a lovely view of the garden your pet rocks have, Lucy! Also I note you have one of my favourite hag stones on the front row there!)  but I think we could have some more entries before I finally make my mind up, so come on Rubblers, get taking your pictures. You only have two more weeks!

Linda from Kilmarnoch, I am jealous of you getting to watch sandwiches going past on the assembly line at your new job. I myself would secretly like a change from assembling my fabulous rock cakes on my own assembly line, and sandwiches must be quite fascinating things to watch, especially if they are all different. Don’t be sad, Linda. You have a long important life to live. When you have completed the prize-winning sandwich-watching-while-smiling-task before you, there will be other even more exciting challenges and you can win them all, like me, your multiple prize-winning, world-famous friend. Keep your hag stone close, Linda, and be determined to be happy, even on days when all the sandwiches are boringly alike, or a germ will get you, and then who would there be to knit for the Rubble Club? A change is coming.

Linedancer, I demand that it is time you got a new computer. If Linda from Kilmarnoch moves to Blackpool, as she keeps threatening to do, you can visit her often and write to me on her computer, because hers works very well. You could open a sandwich shop together here in Blackpool, specialising in catering for teams of holiday-making Linedancers, and Linda could knit cowboy hats for them. I can provide the sandy Blackpool rock cakes for dessert. We miss our Linedancing sessions, don’t we, Rubble Clubbers, but I have not liked to nag, nag nag you to jump up off the prefects’ couch, Linedancer, to get the members doing a bit of a shindig around the room, although I have often wished for it. I remember the golden old days in my parlour, when you were appointed Head Prefect for your amazing dancing talents.  Indeed, in the golden old days, Rubble Clubbers, Linedancer seemed to be the only member that there was. Now we have so many members we can have competitions in which mine is no longer the only entry!

Next week I promise you a nice new issue of the Undergrowby Gazette when I have had chance to get out and about with my ladder and my reporter’s notebook, gathering gossip for you. Till then, I remain your brave, indestructible Chairman and germ-free little friend, Madge Dumpling.

Sorry Madge has caught a germ and has locked herself in her bed cupboard so no one else will catch it. She should be back next week.

Hello and come on in, Rubble Clubbers! I am Madge Dumpling, your Chairman and pet rock expert, keeping you all in order so no pet rocks get injured in the crush over there at the buffet table. It’s  even a bit cramped on the pet rock’s party area, (the mantlepiece) now that the hagstones have arrived.  And it’s not just the pet rocks who are cramped. There are so many prefects now that there is hardly room for them all on the prefects’ couch.  I’m leaving it to the Head Prefect, Linedancer,  and the Deputy Head Prefect, Linda from Kilmarnoch to seat everyone nicely. If you can’t get on the couch, everybody go and get yourselves a nice sandy rock to sit on. There are plenty on the quarry heap outside.

First, the postbag. Linda from Kilmarnoch, I am pleased to announce, has got a job! Three cheers for that, hip hip, hooray! By way of celebration she will shortly be receiving some of the more unruly hagstones who are causing havoc on the overcrowded mantlepiece. Her shipment of designer hats and scarves are available to be viewed by request at the Magic Wand Factory Shop near Gynn Square, Blackpool.

Shannon, a good friend of Sam and Ellie, has written me a nice letter expressing an interest in the next competition. OOh, Shannon, that is music to my ears! THE NEXT COMPETITION IS ON RIGHT NOW! All you have to do is take a picture of your pet rock having summer fun in an unusual place. Then you have to send it to me somehow, either in an email, a letter or as a print handed over the counter, that I can get Grandad Gray to stick it onto my magic laptop screen for me. If you haven’t got a camera, draw me a picture. All the entries will be shown at next week’s meeting, or the week after if nobody enters this week, and so on until someone enters. All entries will win something and the winner will win the star prize, a fairy toadstool wishing ring. This is what you do with it. Only the best behaved pet rock of the day gets to sit in the middle of the toadstool ring and make a wish. Having a fairy ring ensures your pet rocks are on their best behaviour at all times. And don’t worry,  they won’t make selfish wishes. They always wish for lovely things to happen to their friends and you, their owners, and because of the fairy ring, their wishes always comes true. So be quick and take your photos! Be creative!

And now, here is the long-awaited article about the pet rock umbrella and its hidden messages. Until next week I remain your overheated Chairman and tiny little friend, Madge Dumpling.