Biggest Suites Ever at the Laura Ashley Hotel in Wales – But Where’s My Bedtime Choc? «

Biggest Suites Ever at the Laura Ashley Hotel in Wales – But Where’s My Bedtime Choc?

Tuesday 18th March 2014

Last week Val and I were on Dainty Lady TV business in Wales. We achieved a level of luxury never before known. Then on Friday in another part of the country altogether, I attended a Ground-Breaking Ceremony, before returning, on Saturday to the Capital, to resume my Gorgeous Life – so far, one lunch, one dinner, one Fraü (that’s an opera) and one Press Preview.

At the Laura Ashley Hotel in Wales it was paradise. Val said, ‘This suite’s the size of my entire flatti.’ There was moderate ill-feeling because his had two tellies. But I had second-hand books for atmosphere and he didn’t. My suite was a veal and powder-blue scheme, with four-poster bed and antiques. My own luggage and accoutrements looked so dog-earred in the suite, even though Val had altered some of my clothes and we had a fitting there. There was one stain in the veal carpet though and the radiator was noisy. But it was paradise. One just hovered in a state of paradise in the hotel. My God the other guests looked dog-earred in the public rooms! Their clothes! So rough and boil-washed in the Clough-Williams-Ellis drawing room beneath the Augustus John drawing. We had a little lunch in the corner of that Drawing Room, off the white and silver china, not the gold and white set used for tea. Val explained about Melton, of which military uniforms were made, and how the sleeves of tunics were set. As usual in a country house hotel, the other guests were so much in a state of paradise, they had no conversation so eavesdropped on ours. ‘So fitted, the military uniforms of the Napoleonic era,’ Val exclaimed. ‘Clamped to the body. People today have no idea.’

In the day-time, Val carried out research work on my behalf, while I was ensuite broadcasting to the Dainty Lady TV audience about table decoration. There was a mix-up about Whistler. Every time Val referred to the Whistler muriels on the stairs (the same stairs, very possibly, where Laura fell to her death), the managers said, ‘The Whistlers are in the Whistler Room.’ They couldn’t or wouldn’t see that there was Rex Whistler and then another Whistler with a Mother. The Sickert, they said, was on loan, but Val had learned not to believe a word they said and tracked down the Sickert on the upper bedroom corridor where the Dame Laura Knight was.

I don’t know what the other guests were doing in paradise but they weren’t looking at the art. Norma Lamont and John Major had stayed in the hotel and their Collinses were framed and on display. We toured the other drawing rooms, the Whistler Room, the modern conservatory extension. Who would have thought there was so much to do in a hotel? We toured the gardens, without flowers but with a heli-pad and a maze. I was frantic to get out of the maze because suddenly we heard a helicopter landing. I absolutely dashed to the pad to see two men, not gay, in leisure outfits emerge and take morning coffee in the hotel. They had no particular sheen of greatness. Val and I inspected the outside of the building, trying to see where Clough-Williams-Ellis began and the old Jacobethan ended. There was a craggy coat of arms carved on an outside wall but the Latin motto stumped us.

My God! we were investigative in the hotel.

The dinners cost £175 a head or A la carte the minimum price for a dish was about £35. But never fear if you’re on Dainty Lady TV business and not paying. Val couldn’t take any of it on account of his delicate stomach. ‘I don’t want the celeriac on a bed of Abergavenny hay,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a poached egg, no toast.’

At bedtime, Val said, ‘I’ll just take this carpet off the bed.’ He meant the bedspread. In the suites one was enveloped in upholstery. Ten-million-ply curtains, cushions, throws, covers. In bed you could die under the weight of inter-lined fabrics. Last thing, I reached for the complimentary bedtime chocolate. Can you imagine? It wasn’t a choc but a knob of the furniture.

The Veal and Powder Blue Scheme in My Suite at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

One of the Drawing Rooms at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

The Augustus John at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

Have you Got the Right Whistler? This is Rex on the Stairs (Could it Be, the Very Laura Ashley Death Stairs?) of the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales. Just Maybe Laura’s Last View was that White Peacock