Tuesday 21st November 2023

Quite a lot happens out of town. I was telling the Gay Mother that it’s now not unheard of for children to go school ‘identifying’ as dogs or as ‘dog-gender’. ‘But dogs don’t have lessons,’ the Gay Mother said. Nor was she convinced that Donald Trump is only 77. ‘He looks a lot older to me.’

I’m not quite sure how you can look older than 77. But there we are.

We went down to the Duchy Nursery where there’s a grand sort of restaurant now. She was that pleased with the plaice main, she passed a remark about it to the head woman of the restaurant. But utterly did she refuse the fur-lined anorak in the gift shop. ‘It’s only £350,’ I was going. She seemed to think the fur lining some kind of horror.

There was a charming bulb planter made out of that stuff old tin baths were made of. It was just what she was looking for. But £15! No, no, wasn’t having it. I think the barrier was the material. She couldn’t grasp that the old tin bath look could cost anything at all.

We made an expedition to see the incredibly rare euonymus in the Gay Mother’s own garden, which I had had to fetch from a very peculiar nursery in Somerset in 2018. All the gates were locked. You had to phone for entrance. Within was a vast area full of shrubs but you could imagine somebody training a private army there or making bombs underground. It was that creepy.

At least the euonymus has done well in the Gay Mother’s garden and this year was aflame with autumn colour. The Gay Mother could see it from afar and with special effort managed to get up the slope to within 10 metres of it.

I featured a gammon on this visit which Royston King had urged when we visited the Windsor Farm shop. Luckily the Gay Mother took to the gammon. I also acquired Balmoral venison and a Royal pie. £48.

We went on to the Savill Garden for the autumn colour. Excellent. Nobody there. ‘I’m a nicer person in a garden,’ Royston King said, a theory that held good until he tried to horse-whip me into the greenhouse but mercifully changed his mind at the last min. Spared the greenhouse.

Marvellous autumn colour in the Savill Garden. Such choice specimen trees in this garden; would have been worth seeing even if no autumn colour. Royston was preoccupied with shrubs and how they’re not mentioned any more. Shrubs are out. Indeed the gardening correspondent of the Evening Standard, a young man called George, had looked mystified and a bit cross when I mentioned to him, a few weeks ago, the lack of shrub renewal at Great Dixter. This was at Miss Mina’s. ‘Shrubs aren’t fashionable,’ he snapped. ‘Nobody’s doing them.’ ‘But you’ve got to look to the future,’ I snapped back.

Royston told me I’d got the difference between a tree and shrub all wrong. ‘A tree can have more than one stem.’ Still I’ve known worse. I could have been denounced as ‘reactionary’ or just totally inferior and disgraceful. There was soothing in the hortus, for sure.

Royston received two last-minutes in the garden for that night. This is because he suffered a bereavement and was being cared for. His spectacular, although rarely seen, father passed in Jamaica. One was from our favourite museum director, to dine alone with him and his toddler, who is dining now although only three. In those circles you advance quickly.

But Royston had already accepted the other one – the Hurlingham Club Fireworks night and supper.  No room for me. Royston did ask.  Tickets had sold out weeks ago. This one for Royston only on offer because somebody’s girlfriend had scratched on the day.

So I was home alone that evening.

The Savill Garden in Autumn

The Savill Garden

The Savill Garden

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