The cape is safe and the Irishman is sleeping...a watchman at the tower shouted down the other day...this all seems in order and I'm sure will make sense to some.

My cousin Ernulf is still missing (see Chapter One, Verse Four and Chapter Two, Verse Two for details), as is the milk cow on which I painted his missing person details (see Chapter One, Verse Five for details) and my prize cow Lucrecia named after the mother of my cook (see Chapter One, Verse Five for details).  My cook has now lost the milk jug on which I painted these details (please see Chapter Two, Verse Two for details).  I begin to suspect him of being less than the idiot I thought he was...

Also still missing, presumed on a training run, are my famous Norwegian Blue Racing Snails, with the inter-Knights snail racing cup fast approaching I am becoming very concerned.  My bouncy new serving wench Marie Celeste is proving a brilliant addition to the castle.  When I complained to the cook that he had lost my favourite jug (see above) he replied, "don't panic, Marie Celeste has two cracking ones".  He laughed, Marie Celeste blushed.  I am still confused as she was carrying a mop, not two jugs, at the time.  The humour of the kitchen is one which I've never quite got to grips with. 

I finally found my horse the other day.  A deep joy.  I feel we will be most happy together and notch up many adventures.  Speaking of which despite trips to Cornwall, Yorkshire, Berkshire and Derbyshire since I last wrote, I have still not found a dragon to slay or a maiden to rescue.  In one place I asked if there were any virgins to protect in the town and the inn keeper looked at me and said "Virgins?  Here?  You'll be lucky mate..."  Not a promising start to the campaign.  I ride out again tomorrow up north with high hopes that this time I will finally find the dragon of my dreams...

Dear Reader, it is a very black day in the country: not due to the death of some of my beloved prize pigs in a fishing accident or the continued absence of my cousin Ernulf, although both of these things are less than ideal, but due to the garden.  There is one crop that I prize above all others, one that is more valuable than gold in the garden of this knight - my sloes.  I went out today to harvest this crop in order make one of my favourite drinks The Family Sloe Gin.  This sublime nectar is made to a recipe protected from all but the head of the family since before the siege of Jerusalem.  At the siege the then head of the brood, Baldwin, foolishly tried to stop a Mohammedan's arrow with his head and died.  The recipe was secretly persevered in his quillin, brought back to England and has been kept here ever since in a rolled up sock in the sock drawer, hidden in the rockery.   
On arriving at the sloe tree I discovered that the birds had made it there first and carried off all but two of the sloes.  I held the two sloes gently in my hand, so many tears rolled down my cheek that my armour is now rusty.  Then a bird – a tit I think - came down and stole one of them out of my hand.  I shook my fist violently at it as it flew away, thereby crushing the other sloe.  Oh, how ironic.  Oh, how moronic.  This year will go down as a very bad year in the family annals, an anus horribilis, an anus tea-totallus, an anus of no sloe gin.  I am wearing black and my cook is now as black as the charred ashes of what was once intended as the celebratory St Distaff's Day Annual Sloe Harvesting Luncheon.  
My cousin Ernulf remains missing; I have printed his details on the side of a milk cow, but if you have any information as to his whereabouts, please do get in touch.

I've spent a very frustrating day, with paper work up to the top of my greave.  I hate paper work, why a mediaeval knight should have to deal with it is beyond me.  It takes me away from the important work of tracking dragons, rescuing maidens and practicing tracking dragons and rescuing maidens.  Many is the maiden who has jumped out of the window of the highest turret expecting to find the knight errant below ready to catch her (this procedure is standard and can be found in Chapter VII of "Maidens, the rescuing of, a guide" {translated from the French} by Gideon du Flange {out of print at the time of writing}) only to find mid flight that the knight she was expecting to be below her to catch her is not below her waiting to catch her as he has had to fill in his lance application licence paper work or pay the congestion charge for his horse.  The maiden then has no choice, being in mid air but to carry on hurtling towards the floor screaming and bemoaning the amount of paper work in the mediaeval world before hitting the floor, cracking like a ducks egg and becoming squelchier than the pancake mix on Shrove Tuesday. 

What paper work could you (I) possibly have to do?  I hear you ask, well I imagine you asking it I suppose, as if I could actually hear you then this would be a conversation.  Today I spent the day writing the new exam for my potential squires.  It's not an easy job being a squire.  I go through squires like the local minstrel chorus go through drummers.  They are very temperamental and the written exam is rigorous.  I finally finished the exam paper late this evening and set the current three applicants for the job down to do the exam only to discover that none of them could read…this is certainly less than ideal…I then decided to do a survey of the village and discovered that in our mighty metropolis of 200 people, only the priest could read.  This does explain why the notes I left for the milkman have been ignored: but back to the priest.  I'm not against priests joining me in quests involving mindless violence, I'm very much an equal opportunities employer, but he's even older than me and the last time he saw action was at the siege of Jerusalem.  So now I have to teach the three potential squires to read so that in a few months they'll be able to sit the exam…it's a thankless task, even Geoffrey Chaucer can spell better than this lot.