Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain was due to visit Ireland in the near future.

I must inform my reader that the visit is now somewhat uncertain, as I may have quite accidentally caused the tiniest little Diplomatic Incident.

Her Ladyship and I were making our travel preparations for The Wedding over the last couple of weeks.

Last Wednesday young Philip Treacy popped around to make the final adjustments to Her Hat, arangements had been made to feed Fluffy, and Ernst and Cuthbert given strict instructions on what research needed doing while I was away.

You can imagine my irritation when the invitations never materialised

Her Ladyship was more miffed than I have seen in a long time (since we lost the East Wing last December to an error in one of the Cold Fusion equations) and retired to her boudoir with two bottles of gin and much stamping of feet, followed by crashes and other loud noises, which quite unsettled the servants.

Extremely annoyed myself, I put pen to paper, and wrote Her Majesty quite a snitty letter explaining the hurt and humiliation she had caused to someone who has been of considerable assistance to her in the past (I am sworn to silence on this).

In my anger, I expressed myself more forcefully than is my wont, but, I thought to myself, "enough is enough!"

Ernst hurried off to Sean Bán Ó MacAnRidire, our local Postmaster and posted the letter.

So far, so good, I hear you think. Quite so!

The real trouble started the following morning when Ernst asked "Master, wot it is wot I did leave your leters in de drawer in de Laboratory. Didded you get dem?"

With the blood draining from my face I hastened to the Laboratory to find the expected invitations thrown in a drawer along with a flyer from Lidl and some junk mail asking if I wished to buy an Irish bank for €13.

One of my Loyal Staff, known to you as Ghost Plane (but to us as our Little Princess) rushed to the Post Office, where she made valiant attempts to retrieve the letter*, but too late!

Apart from one rather shirty telephone call from the Department of Foreign Affairs I have heard little, but I wait with trepidation.

Enough of my cares. I am sure you, Dear Reader, have enough of your own to worry about.

Fond regards,

Ruaidhrí

* You may be pleased to hear that the Local Fire Brigade succeeded in extricating her arm from the post box after only five hours.