Sunday 28^th November 2010

Val continues uncoupled from the dear bottle, or at least on a longer reign. A little drop now and again can do no harm or hasn’t done so far. He tried AA years ago but couldn’t bear it, nor the Wolfsheim wing of Ealing General (something like Wolfsheim. Maybe you know it).

Val will never be institutionalised nor doctored as to personality, just as he has never and now will never work in an office.

This is the longest run of low in-take for years, possibly ever. And what glory! What deeds and words!

What Val needs is a private income. He should never have been put to work.

He went North the other day, I thought to make cossies for a pantomime, but it was something else. Somehow he got on-line, a novelty for him and, first thing, Googled Eudora Welty.

Have you heard of Eudora Welty? Well, you’ll Google her yourself now, won’t you?

This Googling is marvellous.

She was a short-story writer of yesteryear, possibly on a ley-line with Warwick Deeping, another curiously named and now forgotten author.

Before the North, Val edged a jacket with hat petersham ( see graph below). It’s a kind of ribbon. He had to go to V.V. Rouleaux (if you hear the name without knowing how it is spelt you might assume a cabaret artist) to get exactly the right sort that would stretch just a little on the corners. So much detail.

In the North there was an immense programme of visits – Tatton Park, Dunham Massey, Nutsford, Manchester Gallery of Costume Platt Hall (Val loves an obscure museum: the museum of catering and commerce at Budapest; the never-found museum of paprika at Szeged) and the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight.

Future plans include a visit to Hastings, where a friend has turned vegetarian. ‘I told her, you’ll get nowhere if you don’t know how to make Sauce Mornay.’ She’s also to be instructed in bread-making, for which Val is wild.

On Tuesday Val and I were in the front row at St John’s Smith Square for the astonishing and thrilling recital of Chopin by Artur Pizzaro. In the interval Val had a cup of tea. Standing by the sugar lumps, he made a moving affirmation to all nearby: ‘I’m here, by the sugar lumps.’ The tongs, whirled at arms’ length, decorated and strengthened the statement. He’s worried there will be fascinators at the Royal Wedding. I hadn’t heard, but apparently Mrs Middleton was recently spotted, flat on her stomach in the grass at Sandringham, with a shot-gun. No more sure nor certain sign that Royal marriage is imminent could be imagined.

Val said: ‘You could pour your cup of tea straight down the loo and cut out the middleman.’

Now we’ve both  been rather knocked sideways by the death of Bernard Matthews. Val is munching on a Turkey Twizzler in remembrance.

Val's Jacket Self-Edged with Hat Petersham and With Self-Made and -Appointed Coat of Arms from Tie Fabric