"Load it up Geoffrey. Hurry! The tide's about to turn."
"It would help if YOU helped, Tuppy. I can't manage all these bags of Spanish coin on my own."
"I AM helping. I'm the look-out. And if I help YOU, I won't be able to see anything, will I? Just get on with it, will you?"
Fancy had taken us to the secret cave stuffed with treasure from a wrecked Spanish galleon (mentioned in a post last week.) For days we had huddled in Fancy's bowels, surviving on a "sample" bag of dried cranberry and macadamia nut mix, three fun-sized flapjacks, and a flask of goji berry tea - all courtesy of Val Nark's table sale at last weekend's Harvest Home Festival.
We don't have a "church", Hereabouts, but Val and Dave felt that some sort of seasonal gesture would be nice, as well as being a good promotional tool for their ongoing yurt business.
"We're building a super-yurt next. It'll be up and running for the start of the next tourist season," stated Dave, in his most irritating "I will not be denied" manner.
Naturally, that remains to be seen. Or in other words, NOT if we have anything to do with it. Which we fully intend to ensure we do. In every imaginable respect. Especially if said respect involves large amounts of combustible material, fire accelerant, and a Zippo lighter.
"You shouldn't be taking samples," said Val, as we filled our duffel bags with flapjacks, goji berry tea, and anything else that was lying about. "You've tried everything. You should be at the buying something stage by now."
"We just want to make sure that we like it all before making our minds up," said Geoffrey obsequiously, as he brushed a few macadamia nut crumbs off his waistcoat.
"Yes. Times are hard and we can't afford to spend munny on stuff we aren't sure about," I added, through a mouthful of yogurt-covered dried fig and banana bar.
"Really." snapped Val. "And since when did you two have a dog?"
We glanced at each other in astonishment. "A dog?"
"Yes. Those are organic vegan dog biscuits you're dunking in your samples of knotweed and dock leaf tisane."
Well we liked them. But we thought perhaps best to leave Val to her rapidly-emptying stall, and her latest knitting project.
And so here we are on the far-flung outpost of Frockall, loading our coracle with the treasure that we found at the bottom of the secret cave, and trying to avoid the attentions of the native cannibal sheep with orange wool...
"And truly massive incisors Tuppy. Did you see the incisors Tuppy? They're truly massive. I saw the incisors Tuppy. They're massive and they clearly belong to a serious meat-eating species."
Geoffrey was reading my mind again. It's very annoying - although sometimes, very useful.
"Do stop panicking Geoffrey. Have you finished packing the gold coin? Oh I suppose that'll do. We can always pop back for more. Right. Let's be off before - aaaaaaaarrgghhh!!!!!!!!!!!"
