Sunday 17th July 2022

I’ve been with the Gay Mother. It seems that a wrenched back in a matter of life or death at her age. Her strength has declined. She claims a loss of appetite but refers frequently to Things to do with Beetroot. There’s an urge to continue sowing lettuce. The blackcurrants are in and the Gay Mother did Delia’s blackcurrant shortbread which is always sandy even if you get the recipe wrong. Also two jars of blackcurrant puree as usual. Five lunched on Thursday. I did a cold collation. The men came in shorts. Men’s legs are a challenge at a luncheon. On Tuesday we went over to the mansion where Aunt Lavinia was staying one night with Cousin Barley. Her taxi in London had refused her dog so she had to take the Underground to the station. Fortunately another grandchild was on hand to help her. But really what a way to treat a person of 90. She only just got the train to the mansion.

In London I’ve given two seated teas. Tea constantly has to be renewed in the pot. But is this catering challenge more severe than Glyndebourniana? Last Saturday I did salmon trout. £68 for an entire bird but it did go in twice at the Gay Mother’s as well. The guests at my second seated tea yesterday had been at Glyndebourniana on Friday and described an incredible adventure with topside of beef. Their hosts were Gays and had done everything. They have a special trolley for the baskets and the chairs and table go on it as well. But topside of beef. Surely hard and not costly enough? But no. Superb apparently, very thinly sliced.

If this is a cost-cutting corner to be cut and got away with, we need to know about it.

I spent £16.42 on Season One of The Gilded Age (it’s the American Downton Abbé by that man – Julian Fellowes, whom the Queen told Harry Rollo has written an opera, but where is it?). The Gay Mother didn’t like it. The only alternative was ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: the Making of a Monster’ but she thought she’d already seen that possibly.

La Boheme at Glyndebourniana was absolutely thrilling. Honestly one was in floods. Funny, because the last time I saw it it left me cold. Its glory is that passion ebbs and flows just as in real life. There’s a strong undercurrent of hard-headed unromanticism which you might not notice ordinarily. Puccini’s mu is so sophisticated not a lot of gush as we were brought up to believe.

Earlier at Glyndebourniana I took The Wreckers with Aunt Lavinia. We thought well of it. Admirable failure to condemn wrecking as a pursuit … I’m sure I’ve said all this already. The Gay Mother was telling Aunt Lavinia that she’d heard that Ethel was a terrific dog-lover – like Aunt Lav, of course.

Now this heat. Well, it is quite hot and might be hotter. But why do the authorities need to crank up a crisis at every turn? Answer obvs – so they can alarm the population and get control over us. In this case, it’s: fearsome danger of death so wear a hat, apply suncream and drink water. Then you won’t die. How many experts did it take to dream up that essential ‘advice’.

I’m glad I haven’t got too much longer to go. Better, now, to be at the back end of one’s life than the front. It’s the young I feel sorry for with nothing to look forward to but more and more of this rubbish with accompanying virtue-signalling from a compliant population.

Royston’s sister in the late eighties was in hospital when last heard of where she also managed to contract that thing. The Gay Mother a bit criked and poor Laura Malcolm’s father completely took. Was alive in the morning but didn’t live to take luncheon, which would unfortunately have been spoon-fed and very minimal so he was spared that at least.

My Chances of Survival in the ‘Heat Wave’ Increased

But Could be Slipping: No Strength to Re-Style the Oven Glove