Strandpiel 16: 'Varkensboerin'. (Die liewe Boer van Varke)

How dual nationality works out for one proud user.

Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.

A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.

I asked - - how do you render the idea of "Pig Farmer Woman", or "Woman Who Farms Pigs" , in Afrikaans, or failing that, in Dutch? "Boer", or its feminine form, and the idea of "varke" or "vaark" has to come into it somewhere... might need local assistance here?

Dutch reader mvdwege kindly streamlined my original stab at the concept and gave me 'Varkensboerin' as an elegant concept. Dank je. This is now the chapter title.

Good point from reader bissek reminding me Ponder Stibbons also had a tough night fighting Elves, without benefit of a Johanna at his side. Story now amended to account for this.

To/:-

Miss Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons,

Year One, Raven House,

The Assassins' Guild School,

Filigree Street,

Ankh-Morpork,

AM1 1AC (1)

Hi Kay!

Well, life is settling down here in Pork Scratching, Lancre. Petulia Gristle, who is my supervising Witch, is letting me do more and more of the routine tasks about the steading, which covers both the hamlet of Pork Scratching and its immediate environ of smallholdings and Farms.

These mainly have to do with the welfare of animals, which are valuable and important, rather than of the people, who are not so valuable and therefore are expected to take their chances and not grumble.

Today I did what Mum would call, in official clinical language, a post-partuital eversion of the bovine uterus resulting in prolapse.

Mr Peradventure Tockley, the farmer, described it as "she's put her calf-bed out, miss." And appeared sceptical that I would know what to do about it, even though he was willing to let me try, on the grounds that "it can't do any harm, I suppose."

I suspect he was disappointed Petulia sent me out and he was experiencing the more experienced local Witch, and not the new girl. Well, he'd got me. And thanks to Mum and Uncle Danie, I knew exactly what to do.

I will spare you the full description as for all I know you may be reading this over breakfast. But this is an alarming-looking, but simple, condition to restore. Uncle Danie showed me how to do this on one of the Zoo's bewildebeeste. And if you can do this for a bewildebeeste, you can certainly do it for a normal milk-cow.

Suffice to say that after cleansing the afflicted area and ensuring it is fit to be returned inside the animal, you are then up to your shoulder in Cow for as long as it takes. Many procedures with farm animals involve your being up to the forearm in them at the very least. Often further up the arm, depending on the size of the creature. You have to be thankful that, unlike the proverbial hedgehog, they are in the main not affronted by this. My patient placidly stood there chewing the cud, while I restored things as they should be at her other end. The procedure may be likened to fitting a stubborn duvet inside its cover: you are surprised when after much fumbling in the dark it comes right and the ends of the duvet relocate to the corners of the cover.

But by the end I was up to my shoulder in cow.

I requested soap and hot water to wash in, and assured Mr Tockley that everything was now in order and the patient might have future calves as normal.

Mr Tockley just went "Eerrrr…" as did a couple of farm-hands who had gathered to watch the new Witch make a mess of things. They were standing around looking consternated. I wondered what the fuss was.

I had taken off my tunic, so as to have my arm bare for the procedure. Well, you do not think about these things. You just do the job that is in front of you.

Perhaps tomorrow, I should remember to wear a sleeveless vest underneath, over my bra. It might spare embarrassment. And my bra had become soiled, which was a pity. I like that bra. It was quite pretty and fitted comfortably. Ah well.

I mentioned this to Petulia, who is down to earth and practical. She said "Did you keep your pointy hat on?" I said I did. Petulia patted my shoulder. "Good. They knew you're a witch, and not to take liberties."

After I had washed and put my tunic back on, Mr Tockley diffidently said he also had a cow who wasn't firing on all cylinders, miss. Err. Her tubes are blocked, miss.

Careful examination indicated that this was a milking cow with blocked teats in her udders. Milk was only coming out on two udders and the other two quarters were swollen with milk that could not escape.

Mr Tockley's farmhands seemed disappointed that I did not take my top off for this one. I cannot help that. Well, this is also simple. As Mum showed me, in milk-bearing animals, solid matter can block the milk ducts. You also have to check for swelling and infection. There is a simple tool you use to gently, and so carefully, unblock the obstruction. Mum pointed out before I travelled that I was going to a place with a lot of farm animals, and she saw to it that I got a basic toolkit, of the sort used at the Zoo, with all the standard instruments. I must thank her for her foresight.

Well, Mr Tockley said about the cannula that "it looks like a corkscrew, miss!" I advised him never to use a kitchen corkscrew on any ailing cow, as this has a sharp point and can do more harm than good. Petulia says you can never be too careful with people, and not to assume they have sufficient common sense. This is her experience as a Witch talking.

Even as I said this, the plugs, composed of milk solids and other matter, crumbled and broke free. Then a torrent of long-blocked milk gushed from the freed duct and soaked my boots and lower legs. The cow mooed in relief. Mr Tockley shouted in some alarm "Don't waste that! Get a bucket underneath it!"

But at least Mrs Tockley allowed me to rinse and dry my britches in her kitchen and to clean my boots and socks, lest I go on to my next job smelling of cheese. I was also paid with three pounds of beef sausage and Mr Tockley saying he was right grateful to me, miss, and that I had healed two good cows.

While my britches and socks dried at the fire, I was able to do some chiropody for Mrs Tockley, who suffers from her feet something awful in the soggy autumn. I was glad she excluded all men from the kitchen as the girl's just walking around in her top and her knickers, so it ain't right, and if I catches anyone peeping I'll catch them a real ding across the ear, so be told!

Even so, I have now tended possibly thirty-eight farm animals, and only two humans. Petulia said it is most likely to be this way, and she is glad she got me. She has been told, possibly by Miss Tick, who my mother is and about how I got to see practice at the Zoo. Sending me to this Steading was not random.

How is the Guild School? It must be interesting seeing Mum, Auntie Heidi, and our informal aunts, as your Teachers. A completely different side to them…

love and hugs

your sister, Bekki

Bekki got off the second train at Hot Dang. It was still the end of the line. There was resistance locally to running the Rail Ways any deeper into Lancre. If you wanted to go to forn parts by train, the local attitude said, we ain't unreasonable. You gets to Hot Dang and you goes from there. Anywhere else, it's feet or ox-cart or horse. As it always has been. And always will be.

Bekki had travelled out of Ankh-Morpork on the Hubwards train, the Altiplano Express Line leading up into the hills and the mountains. Mum had ensured she was properly kitted out for her new life. Since Mum was most familiar with the requirements for boarding students at the Assassins' Guild School, and it had been expedient to get more-or-less two of everything when kitting Famke out for boarding, Bekki now had a large trunk in black-painted wood containing clothing and lots of interesting equipment accessories. She didn't mind this. She suspected a lot of Assassin-grade kit would be useful in Lancre and, at least informally, she knew how to use most if it. At least, in theory. She also had a backpack for more immediate-need items. Dorothea the cook, who had wept to see her go, had packed a very good travelling lunchpack for her. Given that the journey to Lancre was quite a few hundred miles, even travelling at sixty miles an hour for much of the way on the Flyer meant she'd be in the compartment for at least eight hours. Perhaps for longer. And as the journey was mainly uphill, sixty was a speed probably only achievable on the flat. Dorothea'sidea of a sustaining lunchpack for the journey would therefore, she estimated, see an average person right for five or six filling meals.

Bekki was wearing her Watch Flyer issue pointy hat to advertise her status. Her broomstick, which carried an embossed metal plate saying it was property of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, was sitting in the luggage rack, gently thrumming with magic. Mig Oyeff, the ground-crew-dwarf at the Air Station, had tuned it to within an inch of its life and really souped it up for her. It was a parting gift from the Watch witches.

However, there was a lot of luggage, and Bekki was now experienced enough as a flyer to know how bloody cold it could get up there, on at least a six-hour-flight up into the Ramtops. Train compartments were comfortable, and heated. Surplus steam from the engine was piped back to heat the carriages. Therefore she was going to do this one in comfort. To Let the Train Take the Strain, as they said.

She was comfortably dressed, in Howondalandian veldt khaki tailored after her mother's usual working clothing. Mum had taken heed of the recommendation that Bekki pack clothing suitable for farm work. Then she had smiled, and remarked that this was clothing eminently suited to farm work. Everybody wore something similar at Home, after all, and we're excellent farmers. We even call ourselves Boers.

And, as Mum had also pointed out, it was rugged, serviceable, and above all comfortable. Bekki had to agree with this.

And as the train passed through places like Zemphis, Mum had also insisted Bekki go visibly armed, as a deterrent. She'd even been given Mum's second-best machete, with a coiled whip to hang on the other side of her belt. Bekki sighed. She could use both weapons competently. She'd had enough practice. And whips were fun, provided you didn't contemplate ever actually having to hit anybody with one. She'd enjoyed learning some of the standard tricks from her mother – how to chop an apple into two neat halves, how to chop a candle in two, and how, in theory, to do things like safely bring down a running animal. It was nice to bond with Mum, and do things together that you both enjoyed doing, for sheer pleasure.

There was also an uncompromising-looking crossbow to hang over her shoulder, as another visible deterrent to the sort of people who hovered around Zemphis, like vultures.

Bekki had discovered the Railway Police had demurred at letting her on board. She'd solved this one. The amulet Grandfather Mustrum had given her had the Guild of Assassins badge on one side. She'd shown this to the policemen. They'd looked at each other, stood back, saluted, and let her aboard, fully armed. Mum hadn't needed to intervene. Instead she had smiled, kissed Bekki goodbye, and wished her a safe journey.

"And at the risk of sounding like your Ouma Agnetha, write home. Often." Mum had said.

And then, in the very early morning, the train had pulled out of New Ankh Station, her family and some friends on the platform, waving goodbye. Bekki had ached then, really hurt inside, wanting to call it all off, to go home, to forget about being a witch.

Her new life was beginning.

As the city receded and the cabbage fields began, she let the green monotony roll past unheeded and settled down to read. She thought you could never do enough reading.

The book was Fairies, And How To Avoid Them. By Miss Perspicacia Tick.

Olga and Irena had mentioned Feegle. She'd met some at the Air Station. Lancre had them in profusion, apparently. It was best to be prepared.

And the other reason why Mum had insisted she take weapons to Lancre had involved Touching Iron. Mum had fought them once. Godsmother Alice had fought them twice. She had a set of special knives in her boot-tops that Godsmother Alice had given her, Just In Case. And both Dad and the other Witches had advised her, soberly, that facing down and defeating the Dungeon Dimensions wasn't going to be the only test. Witches in Lancre had an advanced ordeal to face down, and it surfaced from time to time. Dad had apparently had a terifying night in Lancre once when they had turned up to gatecrash a wedding.

"So you get a good blade. And a crossbow that fires nice sharp pointy steel things. Steel is 95% iron. It does the job." the Assassin side of her family had said, practically.

For somebody who isn't an Assassin, I'm armed like one, Bekki thought.

It meant she wasn't bothered too much on the train, anyway. It was a quiet morning journey and very few people were travelling out of the city at that time of day. For a long time she'd had the compartment to herself.

Well. After passing through the lunar devastation of Seven Bangs – Bekki wondered what had happened here to make the place look like the fabled explosive-metal bomb had gone off (2) - a group of nuns had got on in Fratchwood to travel to the Sekkian mission station at Zemphis. They'd got into Bekki's compartment, as if somebody had pointed it out to them. She suspected this was deliberate too, Mother Superior's way of pointing out that lots of people were keeping an eye on Bekki. But they were pleasant company, and accepted a working witch completely. And by then, after several solitary hours, it was pleasant to have people to talk to.

She got off briefly to stretch her legs at Zemphis. The train was recoaling here for its next journey onwards. She had forty-five minutes to kill. She said goodbye to the nuns, who asked to be remembered to Mother Superior at the School in Ankh-Morpork.

An apparent Assassin dressed in Howondalandian veldt-chic, with lots of weapons and red hair, was given a wide berth and not molested. Two large gentlemen had hurriedly stepped aside, rather than impede her progress or trouble her day. She nodded and smiled at them. Bekki frowned as she heard a snatch of conversation behind her.

"Is that her? Bit young-looking, isn't she? Thought she'd be at least forty by now?"

She sighed. Mum had a devious mind, and was well aware of her reputation. And that while many people had heard about her mother, they'd never actually seen her. Another reason for dressing me up like her. Right down to the weapons. Everybody knows Johanna Smith-Rhodes carries a whip. Well, Mum cares.

Bekki found a second-hand bookshop. Even in one of the most lawless cities on the Disc, populated by thieves, rogues, adventurers and hard-eyed killers, you found shops like this, run by men with little round glasses in advanced middle age, who shuffled around in carpet slippers and wore fingerless gloves. She happily browsed, and bought some more reading. Books would fill the gap in her bag left by the inexorably diminishing food stocks provided by Dorothea. Travelling was hungry work.

She nodded to a large thickset man festooned with weapons who was browsing the Existentialist Philosophy shelves. She reasoned that even adventurers-for-hire must like reading too. There was only so much fighting that happened out there in the wildernesses, and no libraries anywhere.

And then she was back on the train.

"Any bother?" she asked the person guarding her luggage.

Grindguts The Destroying Demon grinned up at her.

No bother, love. People tends not to linger."

She'd discovered by the time they arrived at Upper Feltwhistle that Grindguts had stowed away in a side pocket of her backpack. He'd apparently been popping up at intervals to smile pleasantly at potential Thieves who were eyeballing her luggage. Mum and Dad had known, but had not alerted her. She had sighed, accepted this and decided he could be useful.

"It was you or Famke, love. And I don't know what they does to Assassin students bringing demons with them. Your mum hinted that School Rules aren't flexible on this and anyway, Famke don't get on much with me. Nice girl at bottom, but we never really hit it off, know what I mean? Could have caused bother, and do you see me lasting in a place chocca with Assassins? Ruthie's got the dogs to watch over her at night. She loves them dogs. They love her. 'Sides, I wanted to see Lancre. Your dad said to me to keep an eye out."

And they changed trains, without undue fuss, at Ohulan Cutash. The line from here ran on to Überwald. Bekki girl-handled her luggage accross the platform and onto the shabby working train that ran on into Lancre. It largely carried freight, and had only one passenger coach. It was colder, shabbier and draughtier than the Altiplano Express.

And in one respect it was a singularly different train.

"Wow…" Bekki said, as the carriage jolted forwards and upwards. The seat she was in tilted back to the new horizontal and vertical. It kept rebalancing as the gradient underneath them changed. The noise of the train altered to a more powerful-sounding mechanical clunking. Gears engaged.

"They calls it a wossname, funicular." Grindguts remarked. Terrain passed them by at an alarmingly wrong-seeming angle, not helped by being viewed through windows that were skewed from the horizontal. She tried to look back, the way they'd come. This was a mistake. The ground seemed to slope a long alarming way behind them. Other passengers in the carriage seemed not in the least alarmed. It seemed wholly unremarkable to them. Bekki, remembering she wore a pointy hat, tried not to seem perturbed by this.

"Got to get people and freight up into the Ramtops." Grindguts explained. "Climb up a few thousand feet. Same train brings wood and logs down. Got to tilt a bit. To climb. And there's all sorts of cogs and gears and mechanisms and wossnames slung underneath. To help it climb and, more importantly, grip. And not, for eg, to lose traction and roll back down a steep gradient for a couple of miles at an ever-increasing and uncontrollable speed, and go splat at the bottom."

"Grindguts, please be less graphic." Bekki requested him.

She settled down to enjoy the ride. Or to try to. A precipitous tree-clad slope dropped away to her left down to a mist-shrouded valley. She tried not to guess how far down the bottom was.

About an hour and a half later, the train pulled into Hot Dang in Lancre.

Bekki breathed the thinner, but cleaner, mountain air as she stood on the platform, and realised there was nobody there to meet her. She sighed and looked for the address she'd been given…

To/:-

Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes (-Stibbons), Witch

Highmost Pigmanhey,(3)

Pork Scratching,

The Kingdom of Lancre.

Pencilled note on the outside of the envelope: I don't mind delivering the mail, but it's an awful long slog up here and takes a lot out of my day. Would you mind awfully, miss, if I ask you to collect from Lancre Town in future, say when you fly down to talk witch things with Our Mum? I'd be grateful. Love and hoping you are well, Shawn Ogg (Postmaster of the Royal Mail).

Hi Beccs!

It's really really busy here but I've got Prep out of the way and there's an hour before lights out, so a lot of the girls in the dorm are catching up with writing letters.

Thanks for your letters! It sounds really weird and really rustic and really yukky what you're doing, but then you are a really weird big sister to have. (Still love my weirdo big sis, though) Fancy putting your arm up a cow's bum for a living. I hope you wash it afterwards and clean under your fingernails!

Missing you and Ruthie and Dad. I get to see Mum every day, though, although here I have to call her "ma'am" or "Doctor Smith-Rhodes". Auntie Heidi is "Mrs Smith-Rhodes" here.

Older students say it's easy to tell the difference, as Mrs Smith-Rhodes doesn't shout so loudly and she lets you live. We haven't had her (or Mum!) for any lessons yet. Auntie Heidi teaches things like Kerrigian Language and Vondalaans and those are specialisms. We're getting general teaching. She (or Mum!) might take us for some General Science, though, where it's about biology and animals.

Not enough weapons and interesting things. Too much maths, sciences, Morporkian Literature, Quirmian, Geography, and elocution and deportment. Boring yuk stuff. And Domestic Science. Mrs Mericet teaches that too. They also want me to do music. Playing the piano. Aaaargh!

At least we get some Swords. Not with Auntie Emmie. Miss Perry-Bowen. She's okay, I suppose, but she wants to move me into a more advanced class because of all the training I got before School. I can't believe how clottish and clumsy a lot of the kids are! Didn't they have any swords training before they came here? Half of them can't tell the blade from the pommel!

Miss Perry-Bowen wants me to be understanding and she's using me to help teach the dunces how to hold a sword the right way round, but I really want to learn more things with weapons, and it's not happening yet. Frustrating!

Manni and Pippi have signed me up to be a RAT. That stands for Relatives of Assassin Teachers and Staff. Which makes it R.O.A.T.A.S., really, but R.A.T.S. sounds better. It's where we can all vent about being related to teachers. And we vent.

Davvie Bellamy is a member, so we get to meet in their house. It's really strange going back to Spa Lane and not being able to go into your own house, but being a guest next door. Davvie's mum, who is Doctor Bellamy here, explained that Mum wants me to sink or swim in the first term to see how I get on. So no contact with home, as I have to do this properly and all on my own. She says not to take it personally, as Mum's probably really hurting too. I should really get to grips with being a boarder. Not to want to run home if things get too hard. I see that, and I know Mum's going to have me home at Hogswatch, but I do miss everyone. Hogswatch is months away.

Apart from that it's easy to settle in here. There are twenty-eight other girls in the dorm and while Cassandra Venturi took a bit of a talking-to, everybody's okay and nobody's getting bullied. Much. Not after I had that little word with Cassandra Venturi. Now she thinks I'm bullying her, the cow, and Miss Lansbury the housemistress warned me to be more careful. She had stern words with all of us. About living together, being a family, supporting each other, helping each other along, and so on. And that any further animosity or squabbling between Miss Venturi and Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons would be punished, if it went on.

Missing you, my lovely weird but full-of-love big sister! See you at Hogswatch? Have you hit anyone with those weapons Mum gave you, or have you been far too soft and squidgy, as per? Waste of good weapons, if you ask me. Remind Mum to invite me home for the hols? She might "forget".

All my love

Famke

"Yes, ma'am." The stationmaster said. "There's a girl sitting on the platform, just got off the train from the Plains. She must be a witch as she's wearing a pointy hat, but the rest of it… well, come and see…"

Miss Perspicia Tick smiled a quiet little smile. "A kind of khaki uniform. With weapons. Red hair. Accompanied by a villanous-looking demon. Sounds like my girl. I'll go and see."

She went to collect Bekki and apologised for being late. One of those things. Now, the day's getting on, soon be dark. Let's get you to where you're meant to be? Too much luggage to fly with. Got a cart waiting outside. One of the drovers going up that way. Asked him to hang on. Coming? Grab your things. Oh. And your familiar.

Bekki rode in a swaying, uncomfortable, bumpy farmer's cart for the last part of her journey, which continued the day's general trend of steeply uphill. Lancre appeared to consist of steeply uphill. The roads were more time-honoured compacted trails, with sides that sloped steeply either up or down. It was also difficult to see to far in any direction because of trees. And the cart smelt strongly of pigs. Miss Tick and the driver appeared utterly oblivious of this. Bekki remembered that the train that had brought her up and terminated here was being loaded with cargo for the journey back down to the plains. A herd of pigs had been driven into a livestock carriage. Those pigs mist have arrived here on this large long cart with the high enclosed sides…

An hour or so later, they pulled into a recognisable farmstead. It reeked of pigs. It oinked of pigs. There were pigpens, pigsheds, open paddocks where free-range pigs were allowed to forage… what smelt like a slurry lagoon, hopefully situated downwind of the farmhouse… the whole farmstead was a shrine to all things porcine.

"Loads of pigs here." Grindguts said, thoughfully.

"Well done. Good observation." Miss Tick said. "This is Highmost Pigmanhey. So named because it is indeed quite high up and because it's been about pigs for a long, long, time. Five thousand feet above sea level, I believe. And this is where you learn about country witchcraft, Miss Smith-Rhodes. Let me announce that you've arrived…"

Bekki gratefully followed Miss Tick off the cart. The farmhouse wasn't bad. Large-ish. Two stories with extra rooms in the thatched roof space. Well tended. Clean. She waited for her mentor to return, in the company of a short wide man in his possible forties. He nodded to Bekki.

"How-do. So you're the new girl? Give us your luggage and I'll take it up to your room… blimey, this is heavy!"

They manhandled her trunk up several flights of stairs together. It took time.

Bekki was shown to a room right at the top of the building. The view was of slope and trees. But it was bright, clean and airy up there. She wondered about unpacking, but decided to go and see if her hostess, the local witch, was available and to make herself known.

"Our Petulia?" said her host. "She's down in the far pens right now. Out the door, turn left."

Bekki and Miss Tick went out the front door and turned left. The sounds, sights and smells of pig were everywhere. A chicken coop and some beehives were the only evidence of something other than a porcine monoculture.

"Got to have eggs with your bacon." Miss Tick said. "Balanced diet. Important. A honey glaze on the gammon is nice, too."

And then they met Petulia Gristle. Bekki had heard that the ideal Lancre wife should be able to carry a pig under each arm. Lancre husbands thought this an important wifely skill, apparently. Bekki had thought this was exaggeration. But Petulia Gristle really was carrying a pig under each arm. A yearling piglet, anyway…

Petulia, a wide homely lady somewhere in her thirties, smiled warmly.

"You must be Rebecka!" she said. "Apologies for not shaking hands, but my hands are a bit full right now… Ramtops Bearded Pigs. Good meat-bearers. Lots of promise."

Petulia frowned, selected a pigpen, and released the young pigs into it. They ran off squealing.

Then the witch assessed her new apprentice.

"That's a lot of weapons." She said, frowning. "And I've never seen anyone dressed like that before. I can see it's practical clothing, though. Lots of places to, err, hang swords and whips… umm.."

"Good farm clothing for where I'm from." Bekki said. "Well, where half of me is from, anyway."

"Ah yes. The notes I got said you're Howondalandian… errr. And the weapons?"

Bekki patted the whip.

"Good for herding animals." she said. Then she patted the machete.

"Accepted agricultural tool at home. Good for chopping through stubborn things and large thick growths. Clearing land of things you don't want there."

"Like an inconvenient growth of Zulu warriors, perhaps." Miss Tick said, thoughtfully.

Petulia Gristle frowned slightly.

"As a general rule, we don't see many of those in Lancre." she remarked. "We'd have noticed." Then she brightened.

"How good are you with pigs?" she asked.

"Did some warthogs at the Zoo." Bekki replied. "And peccaries and babirusas. Mum showed me."

"Transferable skills." said Miss Tick. "Always useful. She's had an introduction to the general idea of pork. The accepted ardiodactylian family of suidae and the genus sus."

This time, Petulia Gristle smiled welcomingly and held out a hand.

"Welcome to Lancre." she said. "Shall we go and have something to eat? It's sausage pie tonight."

"Pork sausage, of course." Miss Tick said. "However, there will be pickled onions, piccalilli, and three types of mustard."

The three witches went back to the farmhouse together. Bekki had arrived in Lancre.

To be continued.

(1) Postcodes were now in use in Ankh-Morpork. The general idea was that area codes were a great thing as they'd really zip the mail along. Some people objected as they knew where they lived and people writing to them also knew where they lived. The Post Office could sort out everything in between, it's what we buy the stamps for, right? Changing everybody's address like this, not right. They're overcomplicating it. Too much to remember. There was also the unintended consequence, as postcodes spiralled roughly out from AM1 in the city centre to AM54 in the more outlying suburbs, of people with too much time on their hands actually complaining that they'd been designated AM2 as opposed to the more prestigious AM1. Didn't the Post Office realise this knocked a few thousand dollars off our house price? We'll sue... And insurance companies seeing an AM8 postcode (The Shades) tended to use this as a barometer for pushing the premiums up. People living in AM8 tended not to have formal insurance anyway and took it as a badge of pride. Besides, people living in AM8 tended to contribute to pushing insurance premiums up for other people... (I am using real examples from the introduction of postcodes, related to the American zip code concept, in Britain.) (1.1)

(1.1) To be honest, I should be adapting London area postcodes here, which are different from other British cities, as a model for Ankh-Morpork... WC1 would stand for Widdershins Central, for instance, and you'd have H standing for "Hubwards" rather than N for "North"... I may change this concept and retcon.

(2) Seven Bangs is a sad tale. It involves immigrants from the Agatean Continent and lots of a condiment called grimchi which is made from fermented cabbage. The immigrants, from a previously obscure corner of the Agatean world and of a slightly different ethnicity to the dominant culture of the region, had simply taken advantage of being in Cabbage Heaven and fermented a critical mass of cabbage. Seven industrial-sized vats full of it. And not the pak choi of their homeland, but more aggressive local varieties. The L-Space wiki has the full sad tale.

(3) I know. A nod to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath, in which a young girl called Susan goes to spend the summer with rustic relatives in a remote corner of Cheshire, England, and discovers she too is a witch, as good as. She meets a Wizard, Dwarfs, Elves (the semi-nice kind), Goblins, Black Witches, Trolls, and the Lady of the Lake. The farmstead she lives at is called Highmost Redmanhey. Nice atmospheric childrens' books about witchy things in a corner of England which – then – had a lot in common with Lancre and possibly another source for Terry. Garner's Brollochan is a Hiver in all but name, for instance.

Notes Dump:

Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.

Well, after some in depth research and frankly becoming captivated by the essential guile-less charm of it, I wrote the tvtropes Works page for that cute South African children's tv show "Liewe Heksie", under my alternative online name of AgProv. I had to. I have to admit I do like that show. It's sweet and appeals to the side of me which is not a cynic. Also, the Afrikaans is very simple and clearly enunciated - as a kids' show it has to be. good for a learner. And if I'm working in lots of homage and gentle parody into this tale - even if it is obscure outside South Africa and pretty much an acquired taste you have to seek out - I really needed to get up to speed on the characters, the setting and the stories. It also has an ear-worm of a theme tune. Hulle noem my Liewe Heksie...

Now. How to present Lancre as a sort of Bloemmieland, with the barren sterile winter kingdom of the Geelskabouter Lords and Ladies as Gifappeltjieland... how can this be subverted...

Welkom by Bloemmieland

(hierdie pad om te gifappeltjieland)