I have been reminded that Narrow Gauge South is just a week away, so Berger Hall has been roused from its slumbers in a very large vacuum bag on top of a wardrobe in a very dark corner. Here it is, blinking in the uncertain Oxfordshire sunshine ...

J D Wetherspoon is taking Ettie out for a run on its new chassis - a few little hiccups have been sorted out and all now seems hunky-dorey. Dr Atkin is keeping his habitual gloomy eye on things ...

Gari Biscuit has taken Legger Lamb to the Cascades to show him the bridge and tunnel mouth that Gari built and creosoted last year. Legger is politely impressed, but is more interested in finding out about Gari's failed liaison with Lucy Larstick - he has his own hopes in that direction. "Wha' went wrong then, our Gari?" he probes. Gari is still rather despondent about the whole episode - he still can't understand what went wrong ...
At the time of the Queen’s Jubilee in 1897 Sir Macintosh had laid on a big fireworks display for the estate workers and villagers. These were the first fireworks that Gari had ever seen, and he was entranced. Of all the different fireworks he saw, one in particular was his favourite.
When Lucy Larstick promised to show him fireworks he very much hoped to see this particular one again. His Ma stopped him going with Lucy on New Years Eve, but Lucy said he could have them later, so he couldn’t help asking rather excitedly if he might get to see her Golden Rains. Lucy liked to think of herself as a woman of the world, and she had heard of all sorts of strange goings-on - she had done a stint as bar-maid at the 'Roast Beef' inn in the near-by market town, where the commercial travellers stayed - so she thought she knew what he was after. She was very insulted that he should think she was that sort of girl, and flounced off after slapping his face, vowing never to speak to him again.
“That there Gari Biscuit is a pervert!” she told her Ma when she got home. “Just like his Pa!” her Ma replied, with a little smile on her lips as she remembered the fun she’d had with Arfur when they were young. He was a stable lad, and used to show her what went on in the stable hayloft. She had hopes of wedding him herself, but then that stuck-up bitch Gari’s Ma upped and married him right out of the blue.
To make matters worse, she’d discovered that she’d fallen pregnant with Lucy a week after the wedding. She’d had to grab Harry Larstick, haul him up to the hayloft, then demand that he made an honest woman of her. Known in the village as ‘Broken’ Larstick, Harry hadn’t been a bad husband – a bit dim (couldn’t count up to 9, for a start) but he’d looked after her and Lucy well, until the unfortunate accident when he fell into the new-fangled threshing machine at harvest time. She’d felt that Reverend Donats had been a bit insensitive when he spoke about “separating the wheat from the chaff” at the funeral – he’d thought it appropriate to insert a few harvest references, given the time of year. Poor Harry had been pretty thoroughly separated by the machine, according to his workmates - ‘Broken’ Larstick indeed. It never threshed properly again, either - “Haunted by old Harry”, was the popular verdict of the old boys at the back of the snug in the ‘Leg O’ Mutton’.
Now she occasionally met Arfur behind the haystack of a summer’s evening, and she’d have been quite happy to see Lucy hitched to Gari, but his stuck-up Ma wouldn’t allow it at any price. And her giving herself all those airs and graces, after what happened to her up at the Hall ...
To be continued ...