I am mortified.
I, Lady Christabel Craxton-Keyes, Keeper of the Hour Glass Moderator, am expected to travel in a suitcase! This is an outrage.
Initially, when Mrs Steampunkle told us we would be travelling to a Steampunk Christmas Extravaganza in a pretty town in the Shropshire hills, I was rather pleased. The event sounded charming. My sister Delilah and I joined Mr George Entwistle in admiring the festive decorations that had been prepared for the Christmas market and looked forward to encountering our fellow steampunk enthusiasts.
It was only yesterday that she explained how the journey would be organised. We will be travelling by railway train, from Mr Brunel’s splendid Bristol Temple Meads Station. I was most pleased at this prospect.
It was only then that the woman broke the news.
“I’m sorry, Christabel, but you and the other exhibits will be securely stored in a valise. I will do all I can to make your journey as comfortable as possible.”
Exhibits! What an insult! And if she thinks I am mollified by her description of that battered, wheeled suitcase as a ‘valise’, she is quite mistaken.
So spare me a thought, Dear Reader, as I am buffeted and bundled around. I just hope the Extravaganza will be worth it. I hope, too, that I am able to procure a new home while I am there, so that I’m not forced to travel back here in the same humiliating manner.