Party animals

The girls at Dutch Bend had another Anne Summers party in the weekend. This is a terrifying prospect for those of us with weak stomachs. One of the participants is Elsie Bradlow, one of the Reference Assistants who retired last year. Elsie is a lovely lady but is extremely away with the fairies. Lucy Raindrop, who's covering at Noddy, hosted the party and told me all about it.

"How's Elsie these days?" I asked.

"She's getting worse. She brought me a birthday cake."

"Was it your birthday?"

"No. But she told us to pretend that it was and we ended up having to humour her. We sat around my living room with glasses of wine and boxes of things you don't want to know about singing 'Happy birthday' while she insisted I blow out the candles."