Sunday 14^th July  2013

Robert Nevil still native in deepest mountains of Bulgaria. I’m in Normandy with Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver and Esmé Manning. She was in Heidi Hi and now has a fabulous new lift-and-separate bra.  ‘So far from your Poor Little Rich Gay life, the Norman life,’ Laura said, before launching on The Marseillaise to mark Bastille Day.

Up to a point – Matt and Laura have extended their Norman residence, which is a chateau fragment of some grandeur anyway. Now there are five bedrooms, a new swimming pool-sized drawing room, three bathrooms and four lavs. The park is also subject to improvement.  Only the curtain in my attic bedroom is kind of strangled, mangled, hanging by just one hook.

Laura loves décor and the home, like any Poor Little Rich Gay. ‘What better to keep thoughts of death at bay,’ she says. She adores managing and sourcing but once the builders have left, she pushes her creation forth into the world to manage as best it can. She possesses a vac but does not know how to switch it on.

Actually I’m balmy and sprung in Normandy, like a spring-release cake-tin that has been released. I don’t care about the curtain. Light is blocked sufficiently. This morning, almost, I clambered into yesterday’s marked jeans (marked by the Channel Tunnel, which also turned my hands salty. I had to go out of my official car with Xenon driving lights for toilet and was scuffed by bumpers as I squeezed between the vehicles. The salt not explained. I suspect seepage in the tunnel).

Now I think of it, those same jeans were already marked indelibly by the Multis’ new country house. I was there two weeks ago, on the day they bought it. It’s the dirtiest house I’ve ever seen. We had Bollinger on its terrace, with a great whiff of sewage from the collapsed septic tank, then over-nighted before Glyndebourne. Of course it’ll be renovated but you wouldn’t believe the sight of both Multis, in bespoke suits, vac-ing and scrubbing so we could have some hope of getting into bed without contamination. The next morning, the Blond Multi and I attempted to scour the bath. The suite is beyond avocado. Not even the most vicious Vim would shift the dirt. The bath had not been cleaned since 1983. The carpet one longed to set fire to on the spot. The Photo Multi was still in bed. The Blond had asked him if he intended to get up. ‘No, there’s nothing to do here.’

Poor Little Rich Gays could slip, though, into country ways. I can see it. Those jeans – I used every known product on the stains from the Multis’ new country house. Nothing worked. Then I put them on again for boarding yesterday. I boarded in marked garments.

I Relax Over Norman Curtain Hanging Method

Bulgarian Orphans – Robert Nevil’s New Family