20th January
Well now all the snow has gone I am on a new mission! I expect you have all noticed the large number of crater like potholes that have sprung up all over the Village. They are not doing the suspension on the Bentley any good at all, I can tell you. Well, never fear, Ariadne is on the case! There is a website run by the Highways Agency where you can report potholes and broken streetlights and anything else that is annoying you. You put in all the details such as location of pothole and a description, press “send” and you are given a job number which you can track the progress of the work. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that I have been bombarding this website over the last week. Spencer was moved to enquire whether my actions might have had something to do with their website being “down for maintenance” for some time the other evening. But readers, I can report that I have been instrumental in getting some action on at least one repair in a neighbouring village and am monitoring the progress of the job numbers on a number of other large potholes in Old Basing and Lychpit.
21st January
The other thing I must report on is that I have been introduced to Facebook. I have heard the young people talking about this a lot and thought that I ought to get up to speed and see what it was all about. I was rather hoping that it might be quite useful to find out what Marcus and Violet-Elizabeth are getting up to, but no matter how many times I invite them “to be my friend” it always seems to meet with a refusal. Never mind. I seem to have found some friends of my own including a rather nice chap from somewhere who invited me to start an aquarium. Anyway, somehow or other, before I knew what was happening, I became the proud owner of a virtual reality zoo. Now not only do I have to look after the Manor, and tend to the gardens and grounds, I also have to breed and feed Blue Whales and Giant Squid. As if I wasn’t busy enough already. Now I am worried what will happen to my rather successful zoo when I go into hospital shortly. Will the animals die due to lack of food, or will a benevolent friend step in and feed them?