Love from Paddington. Michael Bond

      She also asked me how I keep the postcards you send me in the right order. I explained I have an elastic band, and she said, “Everybody has their methods!”

      But this is a special letter, so I think you may want to pin it up on the notice board along with the week’s dinner menus, because it might turn out to be HISTORIC like the last one.

      Mr Brown has made up his mind at long last. I am here to stay! Best of all, I shall be moving out of the guest room and I shall have a room all to myself at the top of the house. You could say it’s like living in a tree as I did when I was small, but this time it has a wall on all four sides and a door.

      Mr Brown said he is doing it up specially. All the bits and pieces arrived in a van this morning and the driver very kindly took them upstairs for us instead of leaving them in the hall.

      There is a big can of whitewash, some paint, several rolls of wallpaper with flowers on it and a big bucket for the paste, lots of different brushes and a folding table.

      When I asked him what they were all for he gave me a funny look and said, “It’s what’s known as Do-It-Yourself, gov.,” and he wished me best of luck.

      I don’t think he had met a bear before because he drove off very fast.

      That was last week and Mr Brown, who is something in the city, has been keeping what Jonathan says is called ‘a low profile’ and he hasn’t had a chance to touch them, so the other day when I was at a loose end and everyone else was out of the house I thought I might help him out by ‘Doing-It-Myself