Dearest Mum,
I am hoping this finds you and dad and Uncle Will and Auntie Gemma and Uncle Raynald and all the cousins well! I am sorry Lettice did not get to make it down for the Spring Queen crowning, but I wanted to tell you all that Miss Acorne won and I think she is a perfect choice (and all the other lovely princesses were gorgeous too--Marigold would have really liked all the gowns).
I must say that I have been a bit lonesome of late. As you know, Master Pipes asked me to please decorate that big hall up on the hill, the one what used to be an Inn known as the Gardening Goblin. Well, it is mostly finished (I am having some trouble finding folks to install shelves in the tasting room), and looks very good if I do say so myself. And I was able to take a lot of the left-over things and put them to Good use in my own hole (which I think I have finally stopped thinking of as Great-Aunt Willamina's hole).
It is all very homey now, but the best part has been those books that Uncle Raynald sent--I do not know where he had been keeping them, but they smelled very strongly of mold. However, I think the paper is fine and the bindings all seem sound.
I was just as surprised as any of you when Gramma Esme's old books of poetry popped up. She must have been collecting for a long time, since there are at least four or five of them and all very thick books indeed. I have cleaned them and put them up on a dry shelf and I have been looking at them a lot to teach myself about poetry (I can just hear Uncle Will saying poems is a waste of time, but you just tell him that you can keep the Accounts straight first and read poetry after, and I don't see that anything but poor eyesight is stopping you.)
I am practicing my pie-baking for the coming competition. I shall try to do you all Proud! I am missing you all very much and hopefully Freddy will be around some time to say hello.
All my love,
--Rosa
