ALL INCLUDED IN THE BILL... AND Y’ALL COME BA

THEY’VE got all their ducks in a row in the penthouse suite at The Peabody Hotel, Memphis.

These ducks are going down on the lift for their morning swim – Eider Down, if you will, and the rest of us, yours truly included, will just have to wait.

For these are the Peabody Ducks who every day since 1940 have been marched to the lift down to the lobby, along the red carpet and into the fountain before being marched back up again later.

Legend has it that the General Manager Frank Schutt and a friend Chip Barwick had let ducks loose in the hotel after a hunting trip in Arkansas after drinking too much Tennessee whiskey, that’s the two men, not the ducks.

Today’s Duckmaster, Anthony Petrina, is kitted out appropriately, carrying a cane with a duck head at the top and keeps us all entertained with Duck tails.

If you’re very lucky he will pick you out and give you the very special role of Honorary Duckmaster which entitles you to help guide them into the fountain.

It’s all quackers but I love it. The Peabody, just down from Beale Street, is a Memphis institution and treats its guests almost as well as its ducks.

Check out www.peabodymemphis.com/gallery/ for the video.

Southern Hospitality is not a myth.

We stayed in three hotels, the others, the Hampton Inn in Cleveland, Mississippi and the signature Westin in Jackson, Mississippi.

Along Highway 61 we stopped at The Senator’s Place... the actual senator will cook for you and you can go up for seconds and thirds!

In Cleveland we dined at the Airport Grocery which is actually a bar/diner as big as a ranch, appropriate as I ended watching rodeo on the TV, a good old Southern Boy in our company playfully lassoing in one of the gals and the diner resident dog as we watched.

The Fairview Inn in Jackson is a glorious old Deep South country house where the cast of The Help stayed and where you’ll be treated like a lord or lady.

The Iron Horse in Jackson served up the best Barbecue, washed down with craft beer (Old Miss) and has a fascinating exhibition.

Talking of exhibitions, as well as the Two Museums, check out the Mississippi Museum of Art to capture the Mississippians journey on canvas. After the tour and steak and wine-fuelled dinner here on our last night, Yolanda our Jackso