November 2013

30 November

Hi everyone.

This is probably going to be the very shortest journal entry I have ever posted. This is because there are a whole lot of things I simply cannot talk about at the moment without compromising the safety of a certain beautiful elf and, seeing that she is shortly going to become my wife, I really don’t want to do that!

Let me bring you up to speed on some things that I can talk about. First, shortly after I posted my last journal entry I finally got introduced to my new nephew Malkey, in fact Tealy and I both went to see Kas and Kori soon after our return from ClairGlorius so that we could meet him.

He really is a handsome youngling. He does look very lep, but he’s much more like Kori in his build and he doesn’t have our sandy colouring, his skin is much lighter but it isn’t blue like Kori’s. he has amazing eyes, I have not seen any like them. They are very deep grey-blue and seem to look right through you. I think he will inherit his Mother’s gift of far-seeing when he gets older. Kas and Kori are so happy and just over the moon with him.

All the family now know that Tealy and I are to marry. Most of them are very pleased for us. Of course, Tulia and her tattlers still aren’t talking to me, like I am so unhappy about that, and Barty, my eldest brother is growing more and more out of things every day. MinniMarni is head of that family now, and she is staunch, sensible and thoroughly good, we always get on really well so she and all the lings will be at the wedding.

One other place where there is still a bit of awkwardness is at Derry’s cube. Of course, there were things between Derry and Tealy that are going to take some forgetting, she nearly split him and Mella up and it’s awfully awkward for all four of us now, especially as we all used to be so close. Both Tealy and I really want things to come right there but I think only time can do that.

Everything’s going on just as usual at the Lair, I’m doing my work for Brian, taking care of L, spending some nice times with Bytes and trying to explain to him that I’m going to be away for quite a long time soon. I’m having to work hard at it because it’s a big idea and he doesn’t like it one little bit, but I think he might just be starting to get used to it.

Ok, I know you’re getting impatient, I’ve told you inconsequential news enough, let me tell you the most important things now. I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you some.

Tomorrow I begin one whole month of official leave. Can you imagine that! I haven’t had that much time to myself since I was a child. So, I won’t be working on any shows or even be in the Lair at all until the new year. You will hear more from me before the end of the year though, I promise, and I will bring you fully up-to-date with everything.

After our return from ClairGlorius things really were quite tricky for a while. Tealy and I do know that we are the luckiest lep and elf in the whole wide world for a whole lot of reasons, but not least of them is because of the wonderful people we have in our lives. If it had not been for Brian, L, Bilby, Mum and Dad and so many other amazing people I dread to think where we’d have been by now. We just thank the hand all the time for the good things we have been given.

Tealy and I will be married next Saturday. I can’t tell you where the wedding will be yet, although I do know, but it is actually happening and I am so excited and happy sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming! One thing I can say, the party is going to rock the family! Mum, Mella, Andi and Vee have all got together to make our Marrilisu, most leps don’t even have one of those. Oh stars, sorry, I need to explain what that is.

A Marrilisu is, well, think of a human wedding cake, but it is not like that, it is a cross between a cake and a huge, elaborate dessert. It is always displayed in the very center of the party table and it always has a pastry base topped with as many layers as can be piled on to it. The layers can be made up of lots of things, depending on the time of year. For example, in the Autumn you might have berries marinated in honeyed Zair, tiny light flower petal cakes the size of acorns, custard flavoured with rosehips, slices of red apple dipped in candy and fried crisp, drifts of crystalized flowers in all the colours of the rainbow for the lings to marvel at and crunch, succulent black sloes cooked in lethal homemade sloe liqueur, cream foraged from a local dairy and whipped thick with wild honey, it could be anything like that and more besides. There is no set recipe for a Marrilisu, if there is going to be one the fem or fems who make it invent something wonderful and try to wow everyone, including the Marrilis and Marrilu, those are our words for bride and groom, with it. Mum and her helpers have said Tealy is not to help with the Marrilisu, you know with Tealy’s magic she could get them any kind of fruit, cream, crystalised flowers, spun sugar, wel, anything they could want, but they think that would be cheating. The whole point of a great Marrilisu is for a good forager to show what she can find and then what she can do with her findings. I honestly don’t know what we’ll end up with, after all it is the middle of Winter, but Vee is one of the best foragers in the colony and she does a whole lot of preserving so we shall just have to wait and see!

I’m sorry this is such a tiny bit of news, I totally promise my next Podcast and journal entry will have all you could possibly want in it. People have asked is this going to be the end of my story? Um, I don’t think so! People only live happily ever after in fairytales, or so L says. After my wedding and honeymoon life will go on. It’s going to be a different life in some ways, and probably even busier than it is now, but a new life will bring lots of new challenges I think so there will be plenty to write about and as long as anyone wants to read my silly ramblings I’ll go on writing them in here for you.

Well it is getting late and I still have lots of packing to do. Official leave always begins at dawn so I have lots to do and not much time to do it in. I must really stop writing and get to work now. I really would like to have a little quiet time with Brian and L before they go to bed as well, and I won’t leave without giving Bytes a last feed and a big hug, I’m going to miss that fluff ball, who’d have thought it.

I hoep you have all had a good month. Thank you, as ever, for reading this short ramble, I will be back before the end of the year. Until then, this is one happy and excited lep sending you the usual big smiles.