of course, their servants – but you knew that), and took them along, hoping to find them husbands.

Prunella knew exactly what was expected of her. She made a beeline for the richest young lord present and pretended to like everything he liked, even though she wasn’t remotely interested in war machines or maps of seventeenth-century Europe.

Isabel, however, spotted a rather lovely meadow beyond the grounds of the palace where the party was taking place and decided to go and look for moles. Leaving her enormous bonnet under a hydrangea, she hitched up her posh frock and climbed over the wall.

It was a pretty day and Isabel was looking very pretty in it. So when a young farmer by the name of Rory Green came by in his pony and trap and saw her, he fell instantly in love. Impulsive by nature (as anyone who knows anything about the world would already have realised, and, quite frankly, it’s pretty stupid to fall in love with a pretty girl in a pretty frock in a pretty field on a pretty day. Don’t. Find out what she’s like first), he parked the pony and leapt into the field to say hello. The fact is that Isabel was also quite impulsive and, upon seeing the handsome young man leaping over the gate and hailing her with quite the nicest smile she’d ever seen, she went and fell instantly in love too.

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A recipe for disaster, I hear you cry, and under less fortunate circumstances you would be perfectly right. But as luck would have it, Isabel and Rory were not only impulsive but really enjoyed the same things. Things like egg and cress, spiders’ webs after rain, the smell of cow parsley and, surprisingly, early thatching techniques. They realised very quickly that they simply had to get married and have babies together.

Well.

You can imagine the reaction.

Poor Prunella, who’d done so well and got engaged to someone she’d soon end up loathing, was completely ignored as Lord and Lady Carrington tried to persuade Isabel that she was delusional and needed six months in a Belgian sanatorium to cure her of her fantasies. There was a lot of sputtering and muttering and cold baths and doctor’s recommendations until finally Isabel got so cheesed off that she packed a small bag and eloped.

Eloping doesn’t much happen any more, but it must have been great fun. What happened was this: you decided you wanted to marry someone, your family all said ‘no’ and threatened to lock you up, upon which you crept out in the middle of the night, got into a pony and trap and galloped to Gretna Green, which is the first bit of Scotland, where you were married by the blacksmith! How exciting is that? What’s more, afterwards the blacksmith re-shod your pony for the journey home.

So that’s what Isabel and Rory did, and of course Lord and Lady Carrington were very cross and, much as you might expect, went and cut her off without a penny.

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The Diary 2

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It’s not raining any more but it is rather damp and cold. I am very jealous of Rory and Isabel in their sunny field. Why is the weather always so much better in stories? One of our Other Important Producers (see Glossary) has come to check and see we’re all managing. He’s called Eric and is sometimes very nice to us.

‘Very nice’ meaning that if he thinks we are doing well he says supportive things like ‘It all looks fantastic’ and ‘I can’t believe that’s not real mud’ and ‘Well done’ and ‘Carry on’. But if he thinks we are not doing well he doesn’t say any of that but stomps about looking fierce and saying things like ‘Why haven’t you finished that bit?’ and ‘Hurry up’. It’s all right. That’s his job.

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We are on our fifth Set-Up (see Glossary) and it’s only 11.30. That’s not bad going for the first day. Plus, it’s not a normal first day. It’s a first day featuring five children, a cow, some chickens, a goat, two feet of mud everywhere you go, three cameras and 140 crew people. Even Steven Spielberg would go a bit green at the thought. Susanna’s eyes are twinkling even more than usual.

We are all covered with mud from head to toe. But it’s not real mud so it doesn’t feel the same. It’s just as much fun and less smelly. It’s made of sand and water and some chemical beginning with B – wait,