Sunday August 9th 2026

Priceless Sandringham once again beckoned. There was to be a Private Reception for the Flower Show in the Ballroom followed by a private tour of the Gardens and Show.

They were in residence so all the ground floor blinds were thrown up. One room was a bedroom of great brown gloom, being turned out by the housekeeper, the furniture heaped and the bedding in upheaval. Another appeared to be an office with huge TV screen. An outdoor seating area had been established. Incredible white cloth on the table. To think they actually sat there.

But the King had gone to London to swear in Privy Councillors under the new Prime Minister. So the Reception did not take place in the Presence. Lord Dannant was most impressed with Herbert Morrison’s questions about Putin. The same millionaires as had been at Badminton were at Sandringham only more so.

In the garden Herbert Morrison, with whom we were putting up at Cromer, was mysteriously syphoned off into Group B – so missed the private garden Tour with the Head Gardener, in the midst of which I suddenly saw a blonde figure stumping along with a dog on a remote path. It was Her. In a blue slacks dog walking outfit.

Somehow poignant. When you think of the Royalties that have roamed those paths, seeking outdoor experiences of a limited kind – small dogs, box brownies, walking attire little suited to walking, pines, rhododendrons, huge cedars and the melancholy lakeside scene. The King has striven to cheer Sandringham up. The house is not just hideous but deranged. Associated buildings are at once recognisable as belonging – pebbledash, Arts and Crafts, black-painted facings. The whole place might as well be frozen in the 1880s. That was the heyday of monarchies. Never were there so many absolute regimes, grand duchies, princely states, Emperors – and all related to each other and all at one time or another, at Sandringham.

Yet, a shadow is cast. Is it their Fate? The Empress Dagmar must have preceded Her Present Majesty on that careful path through the grounds – in the 1920s, visiting her sister, Queen Alexandra living in seclusion at Sandringham, her own son, poor Nicky Russia and his entire family murdered and dumped down a mine shaft.

The actual Show was a lighter relief. Just a corner of the louring mansion could be seen and a vista swept in the other direction to darling West Newton church where is the WI Hall that Queen Elizabeth 11 attended every January as President of the local WI.

The King had had a hand in an absolutely superb show garden. Her Majesty did appear at the Show towards evening, accompanied by Alan Titchmarsh. But I missed it because a parishioner was busy keeping me out of Sandringham Church.

Back at Cromer Herbert Morrison said he was going to wash the raspberries. Royston King backed him up. So bedint. I just couldn’t believe it.

The rest of the time was devoted to Herbert Morrison’s great campaign to care for young people with ADHD and other syndromes.

Thursday 6th August 2026

I’ve always craved Badminton and everything to do with it. Her Late Majesty Queen Mary was there during the War. It’s not open to the public. So naturally I’ve been screaming to get in.

Royston King had special entré to the Flower Show and a reception in the North Entrance Hall. Not even attendance in Intensive Care, had I been in Intensive Care, would have kept me away.

Arriving by motor vehicle, even 10 miles from the house you enter a distinct domain. There’s nothing you could put your finger on but an elusive uniformity, a certain sweep to the fields and the placing of trees can only mean one thing: single private ownership; a great estate.

The Flower Show was placed on a vast plain before a lake. In the remote distance was the house. However were we to trek to it for the reception? Although classical, the mansion lours like a fortress, unassailable ducal greatness never to be dislodged. Although right, a mere Landed Gentry, such as me, Adrian Edge, cannot but feel a certain menace.

My dread was that we would never gain the mansion. The reception in the North Entrance Hall would come and go without us. For Royston insisted on ten minutes at each stall of the Flower Show, to welcome and congratulate, then he had private needs, then we ran into one of Britain’s greatest philanthropists on her own private motorised buggy and a suite in attendance. She was buying geraniums for a balcony. She said that Royston had been right after all re: their dispute many years before. Or maybe she said that she’d been right. Her jewellery was lavish and only might have been costume.

After all that there were only ten minutes before the reception and easily it would be 40 minutes across the blazing parched plain to the North Entrance Hall. I could see that North Entrance Hall slipping further and further away into eternity, never to be seen by me. Royston had no patience with my middle-class outlook. He must have Kings in his ancestry.

Then a miracle: a buggy appeared, driven by an important RHS executive. I was whirled to the door in seconds. Royston was left behind, looking for his handbag, lost during the encounter with the world-class philanthropist.

At last I was in the North Entrance Hall. It has been much photographed. The rest of the house has not. But you never know… once in… other doors might open. I’m sorry to say the North Entrance Hall was rather a plunge. I would have re-done it. Royston King when he finally arrived, also by buggy, thought my outlook common. He was, a few days later, to be a private guest in the house and saw it all.

The North Entrance Hall – well, it is rather bashed about, shall we say? Doors off were open. But all you could see where piles of junk heaped up in the rooms beyond. The Duke and Duchess made an entrance from another door. There was a stir for their arrival, without doubt. I was not the only one who had come to be in the presence. Later the Ducal pair were en fumeur which was highly unusual and the imported staff, not of the house, were trying to extinguish them.

One ploy was to seek the facilities – which meant you could get into a passageway which was like a corridor in a school with stark white paint and pipes showing. At once the Butler materialised though – jacket and tie with trainers, all the better for covering vast distances indoors as he supervises.

A surprise in the corridor was a well-known youthful editor of a magazine for those advanced in years. He said the Duchess is his cousin. He had been involved with the mansion’s swimming pool.

Important people, speeches – then we went back to the Show. In reality it was 20 minutes to walk. More drinks on the Show Garden, more millionaires, trustees, major execs: projects, funding, projections, budgets, movement of personnel, webs being woven, comments dropped with possible effect. This is how things are done.

It was very late when we rejoined the car for the return to the capital but pleasant to wend through lanes to the charging station. It would have been a classic English summer evening as we once enjoyed in our youth but now of course wracked with worry about drought and everything dying. At the charging station the woman running the Co-op outlet donated two cottage pies which we planned to put in our freezers.

Sunday 26th July 2026

I closed Glyndebourniana last Saturday. A great relief. Of all the engagements one undertakes, is any more gruelling? The entire panoply of human experience is encompassed: travel, frockage, dining and perf attendance. Really only gardening and bed linen is omitted. For Glyndebourne, of course, only the highest level will do.

Glyndebourniana never lets you down. I took Tosca, Billy Budd and Orfeo this year.

All tip-top. As operas. Singing, staging. You couldn’t fault. Remarkably, given the huff and puff of the audience, daring, new, innovative and well-judged. Where else do you get this? So often a novel approach means silliness.

But I don’t like Billy Budd. It became apparent I’d seen it before. Exactly the same production. Then I recalled another at Covent Garden. It seems to have made no impact. The story doesn’t register. I’m not sure why. It’s more than that one doesn’t care for nautical and a ‘crew’ and no frocks. Of course a country house mis-en-scene is preferable, with bonnets, afternoon tea and pleasant walks. The difficulty perhaps is that Billy Budd as a person is rather too good to be true. The anguish of Captain Whoever is compelling. But there’s about 25 minutes more after that’s all over of the death of Billy Budd which is a bit of a slog and dragging it out.

Aunt Lavinia, who took Orfeo, agitated to sit on the grass, as she’d done of yore. I said, ‘We’ve got too old for crouching’ which she did concede. I’m 68 and she’s 94. It’s true, though, that we always thought a picnic table and chairs common although now we’re sitting at them.

Aunt Lavinia still pushes against good silver being brought to Glyndebourne and having 3 courses.

Speaking of common, the frockage at Glyndebourne! I don’t think I saw one single dress that had been built for its wearer. The old evening days are going. The favoured rig was a flimsy frock that looked as if had been acquired from the main shopping drag at Bodrum for £11.99.

One lady was done up though. A fluffy tube frock in fuchsia, knees, the form well baked, straw-coloured heavy tresses pinned with jewelled pins behind the ear then flowing thence to the shoulder. Frankly a moll or doll look. I wondered if a caravan park fortune lurked in the background.

Of course it’s marvellous that Glyndebourniana is available for all now. This is what we’ve always craved. That everybody should have pearls, furs and a really good handbag.

Now we’ve got it.

Wednesday 15th July 2026

I should be vac-ing the dining room at the Gay Mother’s, menu-ing for Glyndebourne , putting water-bags around the hydrangeas .. will the work never cease? Without eight full-time staff… even then one would only scratch the surface of everything that needs to be done.

I’m wracked with guilt: yesterday at tea one of the saucers wasn’t matching. I pretended it wasn’t happening. In London a pollen stain failed to come out of a pillow case. I passed it through for ironing, hoping for the best.

It’s the beginning of the end. People call it ‘living with it’. But it isn’t. It’s certain death. Letting go. Giving up. Until the ultimate gesture of Not Being Bothered, the descent into the Grave itself.

I carried out engagements in Usk. Usk is in Wales. It’s another country. The Lairds brilliantly designed a weekend melding both the private and the national dimensions. In an open garden at Usk Open Gardens the owner asked ferociously: ‘Are you English?’ The Laird who isn’t Welsh described his special access to a great Welsh performer. He is, by greatness of presence, a burger of Usk. In another open garden, there was precious Dr Az Hakim. Such a surprise. Usk is his home. Who knew? Dr Az Hakim assumed that the Laird and I are united in matrimony. There are serious obstacles to the Union, not least that the Laird is already married with great success to the Lairdess whom is an undoubted lady. More finally, I severely doubt that the people of Usk would accept me, Adrian Edge, of the English Landed Gentry, as the consort of the Laird, although they love a Gay of course.

Privately the Laird staged a gourmet self-made fining dining dinner. The detail! The work! The absolute completeness. The printed menu card with the full background story of each of the cheeses, all made by women. Three or was it four amuse bouche, then the reductions, the crumb, the jus, the purees, the sourcing, not to mention the styling onto the plates of the six or seven elements of each course.

A mere human would have buckled under the strain, the weight of detail. The Laird, assisted by the Lairdess, rather as darling Monica so helped Hughie Green on that TV Quiz Show, forged on unperturbed.

The next day, we took a final garden, although it was a wood really. A solicitor to some knitting Aristocracy had bought the wood many years ago and set about turning it into a secret fantasy place, a kind of playground with a theatre (yet to be built), a huge red wooden bird that can be made to fly by pulling on ropes, a Lapland-style chapel and a tower with look-out that only very small people can climb into. There were other installations all over the site – too many to list.

What a contribution this solicitor has made, far better than grinding away at solicitor-ing.

Our visit culminated in a Karl Jenkins Concert at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, at the heart of Welsh National Life. It was a huge event, with the composer, over 80, conducting, massed choirs, orchestra, a South American percussion specialist and a great lady singer. Karl Jenkins is a hero of Wales as the world’s most popular classical composer although his music is Inca, Islamic, ‘World Music’ as well as European classical and calls for peace and an end to wrong and oppression.

The Millennium Centre in Cardiff was absolutely packed with Welsh people for this great national event and the reception was tremendous.

Saturday 4th July 2026

How quickly the threads unravel if not promptly bound in.

We had the garden opening on Sunday 21st June. In my poor mind it was more the house this year. I was determined that all the plastic light switches should be replaced with heritage brass in time for the opening, plus the front door re-painted, and the steps, chips to the interior woodwork touched up and, of course, the kitchen floor right at last. The windows were cleaned the day before. Nothing lifts the home and gives an air of wealth better than sparkling windows.

My hope was that visitors would see a better life that they, setting aside class hatred and bitterness, could reach for. Chandeliers, mahogany, gilt, silver and carpets could be theirs too, just with a reasonable application of the shoulder to the wheel.

Great thrill: at the last minute the Palace added Harry Rollo, Mercury Mr Kitten AND the Harry Rollo Official Mother to the list of private luncheon guests. So the drawing room was teaming with World Figures, Influencers, Chairs and Trustees.

At 2pm our great machinery of the Maharajah, Robert Nevil, Prince Dmitri and the Baroness Thockmorton roared into action and the Public were admitted. Somehow 11 lunched, 147 of the Public were received and 8 took a formal seated tea, the home remaining poised and styled all the while. This year I didn’t hire an extra pair of hands because the Maharajah didn’t like it and wished to perform at the sink himself – with the Baroness.

On Tuesday 16th June I attended the Chairman’s Annual Garden Party at Fulham Palace. Darling Matthew Bonfam was present with his consort, Kismet Sarawak. Their frockage is intensely floral and unfailing. I don’t know how they do it without a maid. Royston King was saying they should buy a home not rent. We really will have to see about an endowment for them.

At the Gay Mother’s I staged a luncheon at which I was not present, owing to having to be in our mine with miners, all of us in hard hats and hi-viz cap a ped. The styling and final presentation was left therefore to Cousin Hilaria. I did get back for the tail end and effectively lunched with the party. I couldn’t understand why there were lemon wedges on the plates. It turned out that the Gay Mother had wickedly added smoked salmon to the menu. Which was all very well, except the only bread was from the day before.

When it came to the serving of the pudding, there were scenes recalling the great contretemps over luncheon at Braemar Mansions. Who now remembers those Braemar Mansions days, when Ivy said to Margaret Jourdain at luncheon: ‘But it was agreed at breakfast that you would finish the bottle of Cydrax that is already opened rather than start on a new one.’

In this case, the Gay Mother wanted the blackcurrant puree, which she had made herself from her own blackcurrants, styled by me with the ice-cream to the side, not poured over. Then it turned out she meant more at 11 o’clock or maybe 10 o’clock. It was getting ridiculous. In the end, I flatly refused her commands.

Not such luck with the Allium Karatavienese though. The bulb company sent me 12 of these for free last autumn. You do rather wish they wouldn’t reward large orders in this way. You’ve already got more bulbs than you can manage. I’ve never liked Allium Karatavienese but as it turned out they are quite architectural. Three were left over and I put them in the stone trough outside the Gay Mother’s back door, with some pinks. Returning from shopping one day, she said, ‘I don’t like them.’ She advanced on the trough: ‘You won’t mind, will you? I’m going to … ‘ and she pulled them out and flung them to the ground.

Wednesday 17th June 2026

Just for one moment, after Flavio had re-painted the kitchen cupboards worst affected by being under the sink. The colour is Imperial Chinese Yellow: half a day to go to Papers and Paints in Fulham to buy the paint … before that, in April, Joshua Baring’s paint specialist came. You may remember last summer I tried 14 times to match some floorboards in my kitchen. Finally I gave up, thought it would do. But at the Garden Opening last year, Joshua Baring condemned the new colour.

At least he had a paint specialist in mind. But I thought: no paint specialist will undertake 4 floorboards. On the other hand, money is no object, when it comes to something like that. In one of those crashes of sudden raving to get the home right, I contacted the paint specialist. It was arranged for him to visit. What I hadn’t reckoned with was that he would have little pots of colour about his person. He set to, and within 40 minutes the floor was right. It was done by fiddling about with shading, adding bits of worn through paint by dabbling terracotta on to look like it had worn through.

And nothing to pay! Normally he works for oligarchs … marbling entire mansions for millions… I sensed though that he was deeply sympathetic to somebody who wanted 4 floorboards exactly right.

I’ve been meaning to send a case of champagne in thanks.

The next stage was having the horrible LED downlights removed and replaced with vintage heritage glass coolie shades. Then Flavio, via Royston King, came to stop up the holes where the downlights had been and repaint the kitchen cupboards partially.

When he had finished and I was clearing up, just for one moment, all the strain and worry lifted, all the agony and torment. The home purred, as Sandringham must do, fully maided, teams of maids working round the clock, maintenance staff summoned within minutes, conservation specialists, polishers, re-touchers, gilders… just for one moment, my home was right. Until I saw that some Polyfillering around one of the new light switches was pitted and I was plunged back.

All the same, we do not give up. We fight on, surging ever forward as we lurch always backward.

Monday 1st June 2026

I’ve always wondered why the Gay Mother’s dusters are so superior. Whatever I order from Amazon isn’t the same… thin and tiny. Like trying to dust with a pocket hanky, provoking of dusting injuries, bruised, knocked fingers.

The Gay Mother’s dusters have always been the mink of dusting… unused by her, of course.

‘We’ve got plenty of dusters,’ she says when I explain what’s in the latest Amazon parcel.

‘Yes, but they seem to be disappearing. I’m trying to find ones as thick and spacious to replace and re-build..’

‘I get them from Givans,’ the Gay Mother says. She means she used to because she hasn’t ordered any for at least ten years.

But Givans … the Gay Mother has been on this Earth of 102 years and I never knew she ordered dusters from Givans.. Givans… they used to be in the King’s Road. Now online… Irish linen. Double damask table napkins. A tea towel is £27. And dusters. £1.99 each. I checked.

So, at last, a luxury outlet for dusters.

Last year the Gay Mother baulked somewhat at asparagus in April and May. I said, ‘You’ve got to have it. There’s nothing else. And it’s incredibly sought after and desirable.’

This year the Gay Mother has suddenly embraced fully the asparagus mono-culture of Spring and early Summer. She ordered a large quantity from Brown and Forrest and, in person, purchased and self-cooked a bunch from Tesco’s.

Last week I did my annual Navarin Printaner. The market in the Far West even had small turnips and carrots. There was a large quantity of the lamb casserole in the end. While we were making the first assault on it, the Gay Mother was telephoning round the neighbourhood: ‘Do you think Colin Partridge would like some?’ Colin Partridge is recently widowed. His lady wife was sadly took in April.

‘It’s meant to do for tomorrow as well,’ I protested.

‘I think I might prefer something else tomorrow,’ the Gay Mother announced grandly, as if she were the Queen Mother at Clarence House.

Such as what, I’m thinking. At a pinch I could menu oeufs au sorrel.

As it happened Colin Partridge sent his son to fetch a portion of the Navarin the next day. There was still a lot left and the Gay Mother changed her mind about it being served to her again in the evening. At least we were spared oeufs au sorrel.

Except that during the second Navarin experience she kept worrying that I hadn’t given Colin Partridge and his son enough. I said, ‘They were lucky to get anything at all,’ which didn’t please . ‘That’s not the right attitude,’ the Gay Mother snapped.

‘What other plans do you have for Colin Partridge’s menus?’ I said somewhat bitterly. ‘You could do him a lasagne.’

It’s well known that any new widower’s driveway is blocked by enthusiastic ladies bearing wholesome re-heatable main courses over which they have slaved. Or indeed food that they might have eaten themselves but have determined to sacrifice instead.

Years ago we knew of such a one who had so many lasagnes he had to set aside a whole room in his house for their storage.

Wednesday 27th May 2028

I was at the core for the Chelsea Flower Show last week. To the Private View this year I added the Sunday preview of the preview, with a huge Beginning of Term Meeting of Members of the Council after a learned tour of the Show by an RHS team leader.

Nothing must be said. It was all incredibly private. What a glorious organisation is the RHS and what burdens it bears so nobly.

The Members of Council had to do the placement for their tables at the President’s Lunch on the Monday. Royston King was given an envelope containing the place names but he scrawled CBE on one of them and OM (or something like that) on another. People from Hospitality, Marketing, Publicity, Fund-raising were trying to explain: Do your placement as for a round table then put the cards back in the envelope in anti-clockwise order.

No reports emerged the next day of placement disaster.

Chelsea Monday must be one of the most gruelling but thrilling days borne by any organisation anywhere. VIP PV in the morning, private drinks receptions etc. Then the President’s Lunch. Guest speakers… 450 lunching. Then a Special Tea for Special Guests…. then… the Royal visit culminating in a Reception which must finish at 7pm. Finally the Gala… and more dinners for 450 or 500 going on in different places.

It’s all intensely private. Nothing must be disclosed. Our Royal person, whom we were commissioned to guide around, was in fact the most Royal person present. One leant into the buggy to address the personage, descended directly from Tsars and Kings, with no common blood, and received in return a devastating aura of Royalty, beyond words or even gestures.

One thing you notice about Royalty at a Reception – whenever you look at them they are engaged in the most intense conversation. Never do they stare into space or seem at a loss. Always, always they have something to say. The other thing is, even if you’d just landed from Mars you’d know that they were different. By their frockage and aura they are not as others.

It was much later that we met Sir Wesling Streeting, a guest at the Gala. I’m glad he was there and could see how Great Britain really works.

Sunday 10th May 2026

I look at the forthcoming programme and can hardly breathe.

On one day in the near future I’ve got a Mem at 11.30, Chelsea at 3.30, followed by dinner at Laura Malcolm’s.

Yet, to some, one is unoccupied, retired. ‘What are you doing?’ they ask.

My basic programme is: washing and ironing the clothes, wearing the clothes, doing exercises, pushing forward on the decor front, bidding in auctions, collecting from auction houses in all corners of the country, phoning restorers, driving to restorers, arranging tradespeople of various kinds, doing Instagram, doing poorlittlerichgays.com, gardening, gardening at the Gay Mother’s, driving all over the country looking for plants, ordering from Amazon, checking, checking again, keeping up with cleaning products, maintaining an anti-moth programme.

It never stops. That’s just the basic programme.

Add to that specific engagements, going to the Gay Mother’s every 3 weeks, charging up the Official Car, valet-ing the Official Car.

In February I dined at Oslo Court. The function was arranged by Piracius Kingdom, the barrister. He’s been known for some years but only recently a regular part of the programme. As a resident of Belgravia he’s incredibly suitable. Also younger and one must have younger friends. I do love lawyers. They’re a law unto themselves and sparkling. I had a former bridesmaid on one side and a KC on the other. Actual conversation. Persons who can think for themselves and do. How we talked and roared.

As for Olso Court… it had been selected because it’s a Jewish favourite. It’s a restaurant in block of flats in St John’s Wood… it’s one of the apartments really. Later I mentioned it to Joshua Baring while we were in another restaurant called Brawn (£100 plus a head). I thought he’d dismiss but no. He adores Olso Court. ‘All the food’s been in the freezer since the 1970s,’ he raved. Exactly. I had a puff pastry pocket filled with salmon cream. Prawn cocktail was a possible 1st course. Amazing. And the decor! Rouched curtains, dainty bedroom colours, baby blue and pink candy stripe, purring with fitted carpet in pale veal. Also £100 a head plus…

Joshua Baring said that all the Baring building projects overran as to budget. Contractors the length and breadth of the country express no surprise at a tripling, even a quadrupling. Lady Baring is currently in restauro and has managed a very modest doubling.

Joshua was planning puddings to take to his brother Bover in the country at the weekend.. carmelised oranges, a lemon meringue pie with a Viennese (?) meringue. No idea what that is. And a third one I can’t remember. Of course one would have done. Or even no pudding at all. Joshua flies all over the world on international Art business (v. mysterious) during the week. On Sunday he left for Singapore and returns via New York. He has functions galore. But cannot possibly fail to spend a Saturday utterly slaving in the kitchen over fiercely complex multiple puddings that have then got to be transported by hand to Haywards Heath.

The detail. The gruelling detail.

Darling Robert Hardman wrote yet another book about Her Late Majesty. It was launched at Hatchards. The Duke and Duchess of Beaufort – so charming. He about 8 feet tall. ‘I will admit I’m the worse for wear,’ he announced. I said, ‘You’d better watch out on those stairs.’ No notice taken of such middle-class caution and second-rateness, of course. I long to get into Badminton. The Duchess didn’t take when I said, ‘I’ll come for the Flower Show,’ which they’re having there.

Lady Susan Hussey was present, fuming re: Andrew Lownie. ‘She wasn’t gaga. I was with her two weeks’ before she died. Anything but gaga.’ ‘Andrew Lownie’s a muck-raker,’ I said, desperate to comfort. I didn’t mention that for some reason Andrew Lownie had once been in my dining room.

Royston King and I carried out an engagement at Winchesterford to do with ‘War Cloister’ as it’s known. It’s by Herbert Baker. Royston fell asleep in the front row during the talk about the restoration which had enthralling technical passages. I loved it. Ladies slaved all through the Winter, even in the dark, re-doing the lettering of all the poor precious Fallen. Robert Nevil would have been in Seventh Heaven – except he seems to have rather gone off the 1st World War.

The morning of the Winchesterford function, Royston had received Princess Anne at Regent’s Park to open the Memorial Garden to Queen Elizabeth 11, who was her mother – as well as Sovereign. She was in cayenne and very approving of the garden apart from No dogs allowed about which she appeared quite cross and mentioned it several times including in her speech. Of course she’s utterly great.

Royston had been invited to the reception at Buckingham Palace later the same day for Her Late Majesty’s 100th birthday – except it wasn’t really because she’d passed away. But in perfect Royal fashion they rose above that and had a function anyway. Royston was annoyed that the Regent’s Park commitment prevented his attendance. But why couldn’t he have got a lift with Princess Anne? Anyway, it later emerged that Princess Anne’s main topic at the reception was her amazing meeting at Regent’s Park with Royston King, how bold and new he is, so amusing, what a character.

We returned from Winchesterford by public train. Luckily there was a Marks and Spencer at Waterloo and they had blueberries. It was fortunate because I had asked that Princess Anne stop by and get some for me on her way to Regent’s Park. But she didn’t.

Sunday 3rd May 2026

I went down to Val’s in March. Unattractively he was having a bilious attack. It was incredibly unattractive. I couldn’t bear to look. He attributed his state to over-enthusiastic saucing – as usual. ‘I’ve had too much to drink,’ he said crossly.

He ordered me out to the Co-op for fruit yoghurt. Rebelliously I added Hello magazine and charged it to his card. ‘£4.85!’ he thundered in posh actress cockney, like Angela Baddeley in ‘Up Down’. He was well enough for the Royal pages and we ran through the tiaras in French: ‘Les Jeunes Filles de Grande Bretagne et d’Irlande’ ‘Les Saphir Belge’ etc.. ‘KoKOSHnik,’ Val snapped when I said, ‘KoLOSHnik’ in error.

Three hours seemed to pass in this manner.

I determined that Val shall have decor. Why shouldn’t he? Like everyone else… After the debacle of the nid des tables that he put out in the rain, I formed a scheme to bid for another nest that was coming up in Edinburgh. The principle was that Val was going to have a nest of tables whether he liked it or not. Fetching this set would be a chance to visit Bruce McBain, my architect. But for once I asked for a condition report which said the nest was missing parts and therefore unstable.

Instead I got Val a coffee table on eBay for £120. His grand doctor friend had said that he might keel forwards from the sofa while playing patience on the floor and end up like Hanif Kureishi or even a cabbage. It was an hour each way to Croydon to fetch the coffee table. Desmond, the eBay seller, turned out to be an exceptionally attractive Iranian young man.

Last Saturday I ventured to Moscova, Hastings with the coffee table. Val wasn’t bilious and took to the table at once. I set about dusting and vac-ing. Then Val served a fantasy Moussaka luncheon with a 1st course of asperge de saison.

The next stage is to get Val’s pictures up and to acquire some bookcases at auction and get all his books off the floor.

I said to Val: ‘Les lapins peut and doit avoir la decoration’. Val said it wasn’t right but couldn’t remember the right way. Originally Jeremy Thorpe said, ‘Bunnies can and will go to France.’ But not even he had the wit to say it in French. It should have been in French because it was about France.

In parting, I said, ‘Try to do some cleaning every day… even if just a few hours. You can’t sit round imbibing when there’s so much cleaning to do, Val.’