Coming Soon...
In the quaintly quirky hamlet of Wormbrook, insanely saintly extra-celestial Vicar Wrashleigh-Whyllinge sups with the Humbleby's in their homely hovel, and struggles to explain sensitive matters...
Babies, byres, gooseberry bushes and stick-insects will all appear in the next post as we meet Reverend Willie Wrashleigh-Whyllinge struggling with the birds and the bees (and a new housekeeper Mrs Mordrid…) Discover why Lady Wheezewarter is concerned for Gillieflower Humbleby, learn the essentials of whirtling whiffens and, maybe, just possibly, the truth about Gillieflower’s doubtful stews…. for now - a few words about Gillieflower’s great expectations…
Gillieflower’s earliest memory of life’s mysteries was formed at the age of twelve, in the milking parlour of the Wheezewarter Estate Farm. The air was filled with the clatter of hooves, splatter of pats, and contented lowing of cows. Over the cheerful chatter of the dairy maids and the rhythmic whoosh and splash of warm milk into pails, she overheard her Old Ma answering her Cousin Desmirelda’s question.
"Where does babies come from?" Desmirelda asked.
"You finds ’em under gooseberry bushes, when the time’s right for it," Old Ma replied with a chuckle. Then, with a sly glance, she added, "’Course, I should’ve upped me udders and left long ago, rather than go looking for the babies I found—’cept you, Gillieflower, naturally." With that, she went back to milking, leaving Gillieflower to ponder this strange truth.
Gillieflower, who rarely questioned such matters, stored the gem of wisdom away in her memory. Years later, after meeting and marrying Albert Humbleby, it resurfaced with new significance. The couple had set up home in an abandoned byre, and when Gillieflower starting to sense the time was right, developed what Albert fondly called her "great expectations."
They prepared with care. Albert made a crib from an old wooden drawer that smelled faintly of camphor. Gillieflower bringing home shreds of discarded sackcloth from her job in the root cellar of the Wheezewarter Manor set about making bedding. She made a rough little pillow decorated with flowers embroidered from straggles of thread and yarn, which like the sheep’s wool stuffing, she and Albert found snagged in the thorns of the villages hedges.
Albert, sitting by the warm hearth, spent three long winter evenings lost in contented concentration as he whirtled an especially beautiful and intricate whiffen. His thick clumsy fingers skilful with the whirtlesnatch, a tool he’d inherited from his father and grand-father before him. He smiled to himself now and again as he listened with affection to the ceaseless but cheery chunderings of Gilllieflower, busying herself with the rusty pan and sooty stove in her grubby kitchen.
Spring was in the air when Gillieflower finally sensed the time had become the most right it had ever been, found herself heart racing with hope and cheeks blushing peering, poking and carefully inspecting what lay beneath each and every gooseberry bush she encountered.
Sad to say, times have changed and gooseberry bushes less bounteous. Finding a baby under a gooseberry bush is simply no longer the commonplace that it once may have been. Which is why, urged on by her ever swelling expectations and increasingly desperate, Gillieflower Humbleby found herself at the centre of the unfortunate and distressing incidents which are to follow.