I Had a Rural Interlude «

I Had a Rural Interlude

Wednesday 22nd April 2015

My fashion story – still huge, still looming – has been delayed by a rural interlude, down on Robert Nevil’s farm. ‘We must walk the dogs,’ he said. One of them ran away. As we re-entered the farm yard it whirled out of a gateway, having crossed several fields and a road. It’s a whippet, which is my favourite kind of dog. So elegant especially if in taupe. Also they don’t smell. Robert Nevil’s Gay Mother said the whippet was disobedient but I think she only knew her name if it was called with a terrific hunting horn emphasis and a huge rolled W which is how Mrs Nevil, Robert Nevil’s Gay Mother, would summon the animal who is named after a chocolate bar. She is unable, to the moment, to walk the dog herself. The other dog was more manageable, a black Labby, quite young, although very keen on leaping up to muddy one’s outfit. No outfit lasted more than five minutes on the farm.

Otherwise I explained that my Gay Mother loves corrugated iron in the countryside, the more rusty and bashed-up the better. There are some fabulous corrugated iron roofs in the Nevil farmyard, which I graphed for the Gay Mother. Then it was time to walk the dogs again. It really was astonishing how you had to keep on doing it. Barely back from one walk and it was time for the next. How do dog-owners get anything done? While on the walks we took an interest in wild flowers and the Spring scene in general, as well as which land belongs to the Nevils. There was also a lot of worry about the cat, which was capable of getting into the bedrooms and sitting on one’s clothes. Its house-trained certification was doubtful, especially if its mood were bad which, judging by the look on its face, was most of the time.

But I note a shift, possibly fatal, in myself. Really I quite got used to being covered in mud and animal hairs. All that polish and urban grooming dissolved in an instant. I have always said: I’ll never give in. Is it possible that now I will?

Mrs Nevil is the living embodiment of the French and Saunders idea of farming women – you remember that sketch: one of them burnt her finger on the Aga so the other chopped it off with an axe for convenience. Years ago on the Nevil farm a visiting child foolishly played with a grinding machine in a shed and emerged howling almost at once, having ground its hand. Some claim to have heard the crunching of bone. ‘For Goodness sake, stick it under the cold tap,’ Mrs Nevil said, not getting up from the tea table. Now she is mid-80s and not awfully well but all the same she entered the garden one morning mounted triumphantly on a mowing machine and vroomed all over the lawn. Then she lay on her chaise-longue in her garden. Her borders give her pleasure.