Dearest Mum,
I hope you and the cousins and Dad and Uncle Will and Uncle Ray and Aunt Gemma are all well. Everything is fine here in Brockenborings.
I am sorry to hear that Lettice has been ill; please let me know right away if I should come home for a while. I am sure it is just a summer cold but please tell her to stay indoors and eat plenty of soup and not go playing in ponds.
I am sorry it has been so long since my last letter. I wanted to let you know about the Pie Baking Competition at the Green Dragon a few weeks ago. I did not win, of course, but it just goes to show that Uncle Will was right and I should have gone with a more elaborate pie. I am developing a recipe for something I call Sunrise Pie and I will send it to you when I am finished.
The winner was a lady named Miss Rilla and I must say she deserved her prizes; she had baked a simply scrumtious breakfast pie. There was also a very fine lad who had entered the competition. His name was Vedoc and I was very impressed with him baking apples in strawberry stout.
I was supposed to go to a burrow warming for the Aleford Sisters this Sun-day, but I had a last minute delivery of apple pies and I got home much later than I expected. I shall have to make it up to them.
Soon it will be time for a gathering of all the residents of Oldfurlong to appoint some clerks. I gather that the village has been a bit out of order since the last mayor left, and now it is to be run by a collective (at least that is what Missus Toadflax Nosely tells us, and she is a very organized hobbit indeed.
I will write with more news as it happens. In the meanwhile, please remind Lettice about the ponds and tell Bert to stop by next time he is on his rounds. I have some extra strawberry tarts just for him.
With love,
Rosa
