Morning froglets,

Last Monday, Herring Gull Harry and me received an invitation to have tea with Admiral Snapfish, the President of our community.  Admiral Snapfish lives in a very grand house with servants in smart uniform who let us in when we knocked on the front door and showed us through to the Admiral’s sitting room.

Well, froglets, what a splendid room it was. It has two green coloured sofas in the middle of the room along with two armchairs at either end facing each other and a table in the middle laid up for what looked like a feast for us with a beautiful green cake and lots and lots of mosquito biscuits.  I was hungry just looking at all the delicious food.

On one side of the room there was a desk covered in papers and on the other rows and rows of shelves covered in books, china ornaments and photographs of Admiral Snapfish at various functions with important looking frogs dressed in different uniforms.

Beside one photograph, there just happened to be a small bottle of bubble mixture so I picked it up and hopped over to where Herring Gull Harry was and…blew a few bubbles that floated passed his face and distracted him from what he was looking at.

Just then, a door opened and Herring Gull Harry and I spun around to see Admiral Snapfish enter the room with one of his servants who stood to one side of him as he walked into the room.  As they walked over to the table and invited Herring Gull Harry and me to join them, I did not have a chance to put the bottle of bubbles back on the mantlepiece so hid it in my hand and then when I sat down, I put it behind me and hoped that it did not fall over and leak everywhere!  We were each sitting on a sofa while the Admiral sat in one of the armchairs.  His servant then served all of us in a very unfriendly manner looking down his nose at us while the Admiral talked to us about the delights of fishing in the River Trout and worms.

Suddenly, in the middle of tea, there was a knock at the door. The servant went to open the door follows by the Admiral.  While they were talking, quick as a flash, I put some bubble mixture into the pumpkin juice.

Interruption over, they came back to sit down and the servant refilled the Admiral’s glass of pumpkin juice.  He took a sip, and then another, and another and when he spoke to us again there were bubbles coming out of his mouth as well as words.  He stopped speaking, cleared his throat and tried speaking again only for more bubbles to appear out of his mouth.

Puzzled, he turned to his servant and asked, “who made this pumpkin juice?”

“Me, sir” replied the footman.

“What have you done to it?” asked the Admiral looking at his glass.

“Nothing, sir” replied the footman.

“Well, you must have done something,” said the Admiral, “as bubbles keep appearing out of my mouth every time I drink some.”

“I made the pumpkin juice the same way I always have done, sir,” the footman explained going rather red in the face.

“Well, clearly you are mistaken.  Take this pumpkin juice away and make up some fresh juice WITHOUT any disasters and get someone else to bring it in and they can looked after the rest of the tea.”  And with that, the Admiral resumed our conversation with fewer bubbles appearing the more he spoke.

While this whole little scene was going on, I didn’t dare to look at Herring Gull Harry.  I could sense that, like me, he wanted to laugh at the footman’s face.  And we did.  Laugh and laugh and laugh once tea was finished and we were hopping home.

I am still laughing now as I write this and that bottle of bubbles is still where I left it.  Once they figure out what really went on, I guess that will mean no more invitations for Herring Gull Harry or myself!

‘Night all.

E