I found my old diary. Mostly white pages, still waiting to be filled. So I will do that now.
Good things and bad things have happened since my third (and last) entry more than a year ago. And the worst of all was the death of my dear old ma. Everything I have done since, I had to do without her. I could not tell her about my new friends, about my latest adventures, that I am playing in a band now... She could not share my happiness and my disappointments as she used to, and I could not taste her marvellous catfish pies anymore - and never will again. Mine are fine, but far away from the good ones she used to make. Maybe I will never reach her greatness in baking. It was the hardest year of my entire life, this first year without her.
Without the storm, the diary would still be packed away... Miss Krym had just left, hope she made it home safely. A storm, just at the moment of our rehearsal for the concert. So I decided to do some thorough cleaning, preparing for the refurbishing of my burrow. And then I came upon the chest I had taken with me from Needlehole. I was not able to live in our lovely old house anymore without Ma, and so I had searched for another place. I found the loveliest hobbit hole I could imagine in the neighbourhood of Bramblebury, even with a lake and a small jetty directly in front my door. This is even better than in Needlehole, where I had to climb down the hill for fishing. Auntie Iris is taking care of our old house now. She is renting it out to a young hobbit lad and sending me some silver once in a while.
And all the time - for more than a year - this chest with my ma's things was standing in my Bramblebury burrow and I did not have the courage to open it and go through her things. Until today. And the first thing to come into my hands is my own diary!
I will hardly be able to recall everything that has happened since, so I will simply make some short notes for myself.
The very next day after my last entry was a hard one, so maybe that is why I never made entry number four. It was the day I had finally told Ma that on my journey with Bjorngrimm I had not found any traces of Pa. The neighbours in Staddle did remember him as a boy, but had not even heard from him since he had gone to the Shire and met ma. They told me I looked a lot like his sister - funny, because I did not even know he had a sister, and because everybody says I look more like uncle Bungo.
There we sat on the table together, Ma and I, both crying, when Ulfar came running in without knocking - which is something that had never happened before - and brought us the book. He had it from a travelling elf, days ago, and had only just come across the name written on the first page: R. Shrubland. Ma recognised the book and the handwriting at once. It was Pa's book about the plants of Middle-earth, where they had found a picture of the flower they named me after. I had not even time to be disappointed that it was a misspelled translation of the dwarves' name for aquilegia. Now that I think of it - what an outrage! My name a misspelling! And I have to live with it. Anyway, Ma said that he would never have given this book away by choice, so there was no doubt his life had found an end somewhere far away. She was never the same since and hardly left the house anymore. So I had to go on my strolls alone.
But life became more interesting for me since getting to know Tolpan's friends from the Grand Order of the Lost Mathom. They invited me to go to a concert with them. It was a lankyshanks' concert, and even outside of the Shire - but at least in Falathlorn, which is not so far from Needlehole. The concert was a mixed experience. Wonderful music and dancing, what great tunes! Who would have thought that lankyshanks could make such great music! But then, the lankies in the audience hardly took notice of us small folk, kept standing up in front of us, jumping and dancing there, so most of the time we did not see anything but their backs. Anyway, at the same night I became a member of the Order, and this changed my life greatly.
(picture by Miss Achazia in these very Archives)
After quite a lonely childhood in Needlehole, suddenly there were so many friends! And great events! Not to mention the music and dancing in the Green Dragon every Friday night. We have travelled together to famous places throughout the Shire, had picnics, discovered the dancing badgers in the woods - although the reports about that differ greatly - and enjoyed the festivals together. We had dancing and writing lessons held by Master Simbo, Miss Lina is playing almost every night in the town square of Michel Delving for us to dance and Master Jiro has crafted a set of mining tools for me that would make Ulfar go green with envy.
After I came to Bramblebury, the friends here helped me a lot to get over my sadness. And when we founded a band together, it felt like a new family. A family without name though, but it is so funny what names people think of when announcing us (Brambleberries, Bramblegambledangles...) that we will probably keep it that way. And then Miss Yola started the Bramblebury Gazette, which is read by far more hobbits than just the inhabitants of our neighbourhood. It is run by her brother Master Peppy by now.
Then my accident while fishing at the Bruinen gorges: I fell of a cliff and hurt my spine and my head. If the friendly elf had not found me and brought me to Rivendell - I'd better not think of it. I spent months in Rivendell, trying to remember who I was. Very much to the amusement of the elves I even thought I was a dwarf for some time. My, look at my mining tools, no wonder! Finally I am back in the Shire, fully recovered, and finding this diary somehow closes a circle. I shall put it into my bookshelf and write more often from now on.
Well, and now I have to go through the chest finally, and then clean up my burrow. Maybe we will have our rehearsal after the storm...
