Tuesday 11th March 2014

In this glorious Spring, Val and I are covering Wales for Dainty Lady TV. Already he’s condemned Captain Scott. ‘What an idiot,’ he said, in the Official Car with Xenon driving lights, as we swirled from London. It was because I mentioned Slimbridge, where Peter Scott the son used to look at birds and was often on TV in our youth. Slimbridge is somewhere on the Severn and we were about to cross the Severn Bridge.

Before engaging with our hotels, we carried out a luncheon engagement on Sunday at the Laird’s in Usk. The Laird is a life-long friend of Laura Malcolm’s, who also lunched, with Matt Driver, after herself being engaged on the Saturday night in Caerphilly. In his Usk home, the Laird offered a scratch lunch. Fellow guests had dined there the night before (apart from Matt and Laura) and were wrecked. Amuse Bouche were served on knees. It was a trio, herring marinated in coconut and star anise, a clear tomato jelly with fennel foam, and smoked duck breast with bresse bleu. At table, the 1st course was also a trio: a fish mousse showing all the fishes, self-pickled ginger wrapped in smoked salmon and a third I’m sorry to say I failed to grasp. You’ve got to have your wits about you with this level of detail. The meat course was the finest steak with three asparagus stalks (but Val said he had four), a styled creamed potato disk topped with a mushroom shaped to fit and the Bearnaise sauce in its own cocotte in the top right hand corner of the plate.

Well, really I can’t catalogue it all. There was a printed menu, two more courses and all the cheeses described with illustrations on the back. Coffee came with lavender biscuits made on Thursday night.  This Laird isn’t even gay. In fact rather the opposite. I explained that I’d been briefing Val, who’d never met him before, and wasn’t quite sure whether it was true that he had a slot machine in his bedroom as a boy. ‘I’ve got one now,’ he flashed. ‘It’s the Lairdess.’

Can you imagine? In fact he had a bar in his bedroom but his father was the national supplier of wooden framed cigarette vending machines.

‘You must come again for a proper dinner,’ the Laird said as we drove out, ‘not just a a quick lunch.’

Val and I forged on for the Laura Ashley Hotel north of Abergvenny, agog to see the staircase where the great mistress of sprigged cotton crashed to her death.

Did she Fall or Was She Pushed? Were These the Stairs where Poor Laura Ashley Met Her End? Yes! That’s a Rex Whistler Muriel in the Background

Stairs at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales. Is This Where Laura Ashley Met Crikation?

My Suite at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales, Which We’re Covering for Dainty Lady TV. Val Said His Suite was the Size of His Flatti