Hobbits! Gandalf used to say that, then shake his head and smile. Now I understand, for I have spent much time with them, not only during the Quest but since. I have watched Merry, Pippin and Sam wed, I have seen their children grow and flourish in their fertile and beautiful land. They are the most beguiling, infuriating and incorrigible race in Middle-earth. Without exception. Ever.

When I arrived in Rivendell that fine autumn day, I was a grown dwarf, beyond childish pranks and nonsense - or so I thought. Within a month I was being dragged on mushroom forraging expeditions, berry-gathering treks and assisting Merry and Pippin in all manner of illegal activities centering on the food stores of Imladris. On the Quest I found myself shoving Pippin up trees to gather nuts and berries and in Lorien I had to stop him diving head first over a flet when he spotted a bees' nest.

They stitched acorns inside Aragorn's shirt, put thistles in his boots, and in Imladris they short-sheeted his bed at least twice (an apple-pie bed, they call it in the Shire - well everything is named after food of some sort!). They put pepper in his wine, salt in the sugar bowl, ink in his tea and itching powder in his smallclothes. If he can survive all that he deserves to be King of Gondor! Perhaps they should have tried it on the Uruk-hai?

In Isengard they had managed to find the food store - keeping salted pork and pipeweed from hobbits is like hiding truffles from a wild boar. Merry always manages to find apples, although I have no idea how, and Pippin can walk around Minas Tirith and know there's an inn round the next corner.

However, it was in the Shire where their capacity for mischief came to the fore. I, Gimli, son of Gloin, have been inveigled into drinking contests, pipeweed smoking challenges, games of 'wickets' and kick-ball, which they play with great dtermination, tug-o-war games and I know not what. They've had the Elf climbing trees while inebriated - and falling down drunk in ditches after seven pints of hobbit-ale, the children use me as a climbing wall and Legolas as a horse, and the strangest thing it, we put up with it! More than that, we enjoy it and go back for more. Pestilential hobbits, they creep into your heart and turn the dourest dwarf into a silly sentimental fool, and the most elegant Elf into a mischievous imp playing practical jokes on those around him. When they go to Gondor with all the children, the High King of Gondor and Arnor plays 'I-hide-and-you-seek-me' all over the Citadel and is late for important meetings because he is telling hobbit younglings bedtime stories. They really are extraordinary creatures, and have changed all of us in many ways.

Now I have sat here long enough. It is a special day here in the Shire, and I am expected at a celebration - a wedding. The son of the Thain is marrying the Mayor's daughter, and Legolas and I have been invited. Indeed, we were told the wedding could not take place without us. Hmmph! Pipeweed smoke in my eye again, blast it! Hobbits!