Monday 6th March 2023

Cousin Smurry said we should drive onto the Moor and take 99s from the ice-cream van by the bridge. As it happened the Gay Mother wasn’t thrilled with the lunch at the riverside inn but appreciated the champagne. She took 99 years. Not best pleased. ‘Another year’s gone by,’ she said mysteriously. Otherwise it’s business as usual. The present campaign is to fight, fight for the Right to Roam in the woods to be granted to another elderly lady in the valley. This involves her in a battle with her own land agent, who happens also to have the owner of the wood as a client – awkward. And behind them the hedge-fund manager who owns the shoot. The Gay Mother against the lot of them. She’d walk in the woods if she weren’t 99 and once clubbed a pheasant to death with that cudgel the Gay Father put by the bed every time a convict was out from the prison. Although she did say she wouldn’t do it again.

Nor does she think that Begum should be kept out. In a refugee camp, she’s likely to grow more dangerous. Other countries seek to rehabilitate people like her. The further topic is the Prime Minister of India, who is called Nodi, I believe. He’s evil.