Thursday 20th March 2014

Val and I drove up from the Laura Ashley Hotel in Wales to visit Mrs Frankie Nevil, the Mother of Robert Nevil. She is 85 and was found reading a ‘very silly’ novel, owing to illness and not being allowed to do anything useful, such as mucking out horses. Nevertheless she was engaged in classic competitive gardening with her son, despite his absence in London. As you know, all Poor Little Rich Gays are spurred by the desire to outdo the Mother, who often answers in kind. ‘I’ve got my own Scillas,’ Mrs Frankie announced. Her hellebores also were unsurpassed. Val and I ate the chocolate biscuits that were being saved for Robert Nevil’s Easter visit, so a barren Easter for him. The centrepiece of the garden was a rare Cornus, with masses of tiny, whirly surplur yellow flowers, the obvious choice for anyone horrified by the eggy brilliance of  forsythia. At tea we poured over the National Trust catalogue to see which properties had opened for the new season. Frankie made her best remark. She said, ‘What is a …?’ It wasn’t ‘What is a traffic cone?’ or ‘What is a bat-wing sleeve?’ Her question reflected a certain grandeur towards the world. But, horror, it was lost.  Val was without having a fag and later I couldn’t recall Mrs Frankie’s best remark.

We drove back, in a bit of hurry owing to having to broadcast again for Dainty Lady TV (this time on ‘How to eat Crisps’) but, all the same, crumbled into Wordsworthianism on the way. The mountain landscape looked as if it might inspire awe. What does a Poor Little Rich Gay do in a landscape untouched by human hand? I sent Robert Nevil a photograph. He replied, ‘Blue remembered hills.’ I went: ‘They’re not blue.’ He said, ‘You’re being pedantic. They’re blue to me.’ But it’s the Malvern Hills that are blue. These weren’t the Malvern Hills. However perhaps this is the correct, altering attitude for the Poor Little Rich Gay to have.

Now I look at the photograph, I think it might be all right. Val said, ‘You haven’t got the sheep.’ So I had to get out of the car again to re-graph. Now the sheep could be said to have been arranged in the landscape by the farmer. Also, I think, there were fields and hedges – so we escaped undiluted, raw Nature.

For the time being at least…. the next day it was another matter.

Escape – just – from Wordsworthianisation – These Sheep Are Styled Into the Landscape, Aren’t They?

Is This Nature? Fields and Hedgerows Save the Day – For the Time Being

Found in an Antique Shop Near Mrs Frankie Nevil’s

The Judge’s Lodgings at Prestaigne, near Mrs Frankie Nevil’s. Saucy Historian, Lucy Worsley, Appears on Promotional Material for this Property, Peeking out Delightfully from behind a Charlotte Russe

Houses in Prestaigne