Greetings and salutations my ravishing readers!

I am honoured and thrilled to be the travel correspondent for the global phenomenon that is emmaheaven.com. My name is Lady Perdita Fitzwilliam Tudor-Croft, Perdy to friends, Ditsy D to family and Dirty Dita to my unsavoury exes, but you can all call me Lady P.

Greetings and salutations my darling readers.

This month’s issue is called Batshit Crazy so buckle up and strap in as one is about to divulge some highly classified secrets about one of the most batshit crazy things one has ever done with the most batshit crazy person I know.

DISCLAIMER: Obviously my darling readers no names will be given in order to protect the identity of ‘said’ person, because as you can well imagine, Daddy and his team of pitbulls (aka lawyers) were adamant that should one let slip their name then, in his own words - “it would whip up one hell of a shit storm! Not to mention the fact that it could end up in a defamation lawsuit that would end up costing me another bloody arm and a leg AND dragging the family name through the muck - again!!!”

One first encountered this person during one’s formative, nay precocious, teenage years - but with Daddy and his lawyers’ warnings ringing loudly in one’s ears, one couldn’t possibly confirm or deny that they were attending the same boarding school or if they were students, house masters, or school staff!

Our very first encounter was at a clandestine meeting of a secret society that one had been invited to join; being such an inquisitive young lady with a penchant for pushing the envelope, one was more than a little curious to find out what becoming a group member would entail. Suffice it to say after digging a little deeper into the inner workings of the club, and witnessing the initiation ceremony at first-hand, one was more than a little excited yet also a tad apprehensive to being fully initiated!

In hindsight, one should have given this person a wide berth after observing their weird behaviour both during and after the ceremony. However, in my defence, one was young, relatively naive and (pathetically) desperate to fit in. The tantalising prospect of being popular was far more important than any of the ramifications of having this ridiculously crazy person become part of one’s inner circle.

The following actions resulted in one bringing the most shameful embarrassment to one’s family and that one has never quite lived down. And one has been the brunt of many indecent, crude and hurtful jokes and jibes that one has had to front out, however, I would like to say in my defence that such japes were always done with pure aplomb and in one’s usual impeccably stylish manner. After all, I am a Lady you know!

Anyway, I digress…

Back to the little ‘kerfuffle’ that managed to cause so much mayhem…

As part of the secret society’s initiation, we were put into groups and were tasked with swapping some of the kitchen’s ingredients to cause a ‘little shitstorm’ so to speak.  - the aim of the game was to incapacitate certain house masters so that we could avoid a rather hard examination which was due to be administered immediately after a highly anticipated and very important party, which had already been scheduled in our social calendar! Algebra and quadratic equations can only get a society gal so far; whereas socialising and making important connections…Well those will always stand a gal in good stead!

For my initiation, my idea was to crush up some laxatives that one had ‘borrowed’ from Daddy’s medicine cabinet and to slip them into the kitchen’s flour jar - genius, non?! However, one was overruled by the one who shall remain nameless but who had just happened upon some rather strange-looking mushrooms whilst foraging in the forest adjacent to the school grounds.

And so it was, that under the cover of darkness, the mushrooms were smuggled into the larder and mixed in with the other mushrooms and a generous sprinkling of Daddy’s laxatives, which were unwittingly added into the risotto that the chef was preparing for the faculty the next day.

Suffice to say the mushrooms contained properties that would do more than loosen anyone’s bowels. They just happened to cause one or two hallucinogenic effects that resulted in the faculty behaving in the most shocking manner, creating catastrophic shenanigans, with several housemasters and a senior staff member having to resign their posts - and one even had to leave the country - with their reputations in tatters.

Alas, the ancient ceremonial horn which was used to great effect for ‘passing the port’ to sup from, never recovered from this infamous mealtime, and no amount of disinfectant, fumigation, or restoration could entirely salvage such a precious heirloom. It is, however, still on display, in its own temperature-controlled cabinet, with a discreet ‘hazardous waste’ sign, so that historians, and cleaners alike, can handle it safely without invoking another mini-plague outbreak or zombie death march scenes. They made Thriller look tame…

But enough of the tatters - horns, reputations and or otherwise, and on to the tattlers…

What followed that fateful, fetid, emetic evening was more brutal than the Spanish Inquisition after the unpopular, disloyal, two-faced, goody two-shoe student’s tongues had loosened so quickly, it was as if Professor Snape from Harry Potter had held them down and poured Veritasium (the truth potion) down their throats!

Once it was established who exactly had been involved in causing this scatological scandal, one was expelled - both Mummy and Daddy were beyond apoplectic, causing Daddy to unleash the nastiest tirade of abuse and expletives that one has ever heard. To this very day, if he wants to really hit a raw nerve to silence me or to make me blush, he calls me ‘scatty’...

After this less-than-fragrant expulsion (no pun intended), one was carted off to stay with relatives in Champagne, France, in disgrace until the scandal had died down. Once I was no longer the talk of the town and high society, one was enrolled in another boarding school after Daddy had thoroughly vetted the school to make absolutely sure there were NO secret societies or any of the previous school’s students in attendance. It was as if one’s past had been airbrushed and whitewashed, which was FAR easier to achieve than restoring that poor dining hall to some of its former glory…

The punishment of having one’s allowance cancelled indefinitely was enough incentive to make sure that one toed the line and behaved in a manner more befitting of one’s title and status in society. It was a harsh lesson to be learned and one did knuckle down and behave - well at least until one had one’s allowance restored and then my darling readers, mischievous Dita made a triumphant return - however, that’s a story for another time! You can’t keep a good woman down for long. Then again, maybe you can… #winkwink

Ciao,

**Note to Team Heaven gals**

One has been embracing the great outdoors and avidly watching documentaries on the magical mystical world of mycology - the study of fungi. And to think, that this society party gal used to only be interested in fun guys. Who says a leopard can’t change its spots, eh?!