November! The russet colours of autumn are at their richest.

I thought it was high time that our new employee Tammie earned her keep, so I asked her to organise a charity book stall manned by the staff of petticoated.com at the Louth Fair on Saturday. Staff members had a good rummage through their shelves, and we turned up some marvellous stuff: Saffy was able to spare 'Saints and Sinners of Cornwall', since he had a second copy, there were plenty of Mills and Boon novels at bargain prices, and Miss Gribble donated her eleven volume set of the 'Collected Works of Kim Il Sung', published in 1958 by the Kim Il Sung Publishing House in Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang. I understand that they were a relic of her flirtation with the spartacist wing of the Gorbals branch of the Labour Party.

Tammie was dressed very sensibly and neatly in a pretty blouse with a lacy, ruffled front, and a pair of stirrup pants which really showed off her very shapely bottom. She had made a good choice, because it was a sunny and breezy day, and the girls had a lot of trouble controlling their skirts. At one point a precocious gust sent Julie Anne's skirt flying right up, despite her desperate struggles, and we were all treated to the sight of a pretty pink lace-panelled panty girdle. I was happy to see that she was within the petticoated.com dress guidelines, and was setting a good example to the younger employees.

The most interesting part of the afternoon was the news that my old friend Sarah Fraser was thinking of putting in an appearance, and contributing several duplicate volumes from her vast library of Daphne du Maurier novels, and collections of the Welsh poets.
As the appointed time passed I became a little irritable: I had not seen dear Sarah for ages, and was hoping that she had not lost her way.

But then my heart rose as I spied the well-known Wolsley Six, its black livery polished to a mirror shine, bouncing sedately over the field. At the wheel was one of her crisply pinafored students, and Sarah leapt out of the back flourishing a garland of woodland flowers, her silken scarf fluttering lightly in the breeze.

'Susan!' she cried, 'it's just so wonderful to see you again! Why haven't you been down to Cornwall this year? I have enrolled you in the Celtic Language Society, and you missed hearing my paper on 'Irregular Verbal Forms in the Cornish Language'.

'Sarah, you are looking marvellous! Tammie, could you please bring Miss Fraser a dry sherry? And Sarah, have you brought up some books for our little charity stall?'

Sarah gave a signal to her chauffeur, and the shy child, one of her well-trained boys I think, alighted from the car wearing an old-fashioned black housemaids' dress, black stockings with sensible shoes, and a beautifully starched snow white pinafore. I knew that the stockings were silk - Sarah simply would not hear of any of her students wearing artificial fabrics such as nylon.

The lad unpacked from the boot (or 'dickie' as Sarah likes to call it) three boxes of Daphne du Maurier novels, and laid them out neatly on our tressle table. By the time he had finished, there was scarcely any room for Kim Il Sung.

Sarah took my arm, and throwing her scarf over her shoulder with an impatient but inescapably elegant gesture, began to stroll towards the Devonshire Tea tent.

'Susan, they just don't make clotted cream like they used to. You would remember what it was like; all lumpy, and so thick that parts of it were almost dry in the middle. You could almost sculpt with it.

'Now, you say that I am old-fashioned, and if you say so, it must be the case. And it is true, I am a member of the Apostrophe Society, and the British Weights and Measures Association - I know how many pecks in a sniff, and how many nails in a perch. But it is the clotted cream question that disturbs me most. And if the people inside this tent are not serving the real article, then, my dear Susan, I shall have something to say'.

My mind was in turmoil. Here I was, trying to give petticoated.com a good name locally by sponsoring a book sale for charity at the Louth Fair, and Sarah Fraser, a very dear friend but a rather 'independent' one at times, was about to embarrass me in front of millions - well, in front of 15 or 20, anyway.

'Sarah', I offerred, 'why don't you sit at one of the outside tables? It's a beautiful day really, sunny, with a bracing breeze. I shall buy you tea'.

Fortunately, the cream did look very lumpy, and the sugar was sparkling white, and not the brown nonsense that was the curse of the 1970s. Sarah seemed happy and approving as she tore apart a freshly baked, still smoking scone, and lavished its interior with strawberry jam.

'Of course at Bessbrooke School the children learn to make real clotted cream. It is all a part of their training to become perfect future wives. But this cream is quite good. I think I shall take some home with me'.

Inside the tent, Sarah asked for half a pint of their best clotted cream.

'I'm sorry', said the gingham-aproned girl, 'but I'm afraid that we don't have 'arf pints'.

'Don't be ridiculous young lady, what are those things over there?' asked Sarah, pointing with her mahogany shooting stick.

'Where?' asked the girl, looking lazily around.

'There...there!' insisted Sarah, leaning right over the counter until her stick was almost touching the row of wide-necked little bottles. Life was getting like 'Fawlty Towers' again, which is always a worry.

'What, these? These be 250ml bottles'.

Sarah's silver-inlaid shooting stick fell to the ground with a thud. 'One of those then', she stated in a tone of hopeless resignation.

'It's a good thing for her she's not one of my pupils', said Sarah with an angry whisper, as she took the bottle and handed over some shining coin of the realm.

'Sarah, how many nights have you booked at the hotel? Two? Then we have all day tomorrow to ourselves. I would like your opinion on some of the correspondence for the Christmas Annual. It is coming along very nicely. But first, there is a stall over here with a fine selection of woollen knitted bloomers, a discontinued line. They would be just the thing for Winter, or as a special punishment garment during Summer for any of your pupils who have been lacking in gracefulness or obedience'.

Sarah was very pleased, and, when she left, took away more than she had arrived with. And we did sell the 'Collected Works of Kim Il Sung', to a grizzled lecturer from the London School of Economics. On Tuesday things were back to normal. And Sarah Fraser has promised to send me her recipe for clotted cream, but I suspect it will be a little too much for Miss Gribble.