I Gain the Norman Fastness of Normandy Once Again «

I Gain the Norman Fastness of Normandy Once Again

Thursday 13th August 2015

I gained Normandy last week for my annual visit of feasting and resting with after-dinner films on DVD. I will publish the menus in due course. The party was almost 50% differently abled, with 3 out of 7 having lally issues. Strangely all pains were located at the knee or lower. O’Halloran O’Brien’s foot had to be aired regularly, the Lairdess’s knee played up even worse when at rest and Matt Driver’s compression boot, following his ruptured Achilles Tendon at the Multis’ while playing frisbee in late May, came on and off. Nevertheless he sat in a corner from time to time with his computer and made a lot of money. Laura Malcolm said to him, ‘You’ll miss your compression boot when it has to come off for good.’ ‘I know. But the great hope is I’ll have to have a sling for my shoulder,’ Matt replied. His shoulder is hurting also. Otherwise Matt did a good imitation of the casual anal yapping of older people and showed a long-standing hobby, new to me, which is picture-framing. He worried greatly that apricots which Laura substituted for sultanas in the spinach tart at Monday’s lunch for 14 wouldn’t be right. He had naughty grin while winding up Laura on this subject and the matter was driven to the point of eating, despite Laura more or less wielding a kitchen knife. It was found that apricots were perfectly all right. Matt didn’t mention the subject again but probably will. O’Halloran O’Brien was tremendously insider. He has been thrown out of so many launch parties for telling the truth, particularly about what really did happen to Angela’s Ashes. On Saturday the Laird and Lairdess arrived in the Touareg which is a vehicle named after a tribe of the Southern Sahara. I’m not sure what its involvement with the combustion engine was or has been. On board were the wild boar pate and the olives of Usk as well as the Lairdess. The Laird at once launched a drone with camera which peered into my bedroom where I was reading ‘Being Binky: My Life in Chelsea’ by the Made in Chelsea Star. She says that her stepsister, Minty, has taught her so much about relationships, make-up and fashion. At lunch, the Laird sang a medley of Flanders and Swann songs including the Horn Song which has many words set to semiquavers. He has been learning it while driving about southern England in the Touareg in preparation for a pre-Christmas perf at the Usk Historic Society’s Christmas lunch. We’re all to be there. The Laird reprised his Flanders and Swann songs at the lunch for 14 on Monday where the recital was videoed by O’Halloran O’Brien and replayed twice more in the evening. Otherwise the main topic was greengages and why in French they are called Reine Claude. I said most days that Jane Grigson appeared to believe that Reine Claude was the French name for greengages whereas in fact it is the name of one variety of green plum. There’s no word in French for green plum. Each day I was listened to less and less. The first evening we watched an awfully good Irish film about the Black and Tan times in Ireland in the 1920s. It was called something like ‘A Wind blows in the Barley.’ But I never saw any barley nor much wind. To start with it was very anti-British but as it went on you saw that the whole lot of them were getting more and more violent and horrible and fanatical. O’Halloran O’Brien said that there was no violence in Ireland in spite of everything through all the Home Rule upheaval of the late 19th century, until the British executed the perpetrators of the Easter Uprising in 1916. Fury over this swung the general population behind Sinn Féin who had previously been regarded as so many lunatics. I learned a lot about Ireland that evening which gave me pleasure although it is unlikely that I will broadcast to the Nation on the subject or write a definitive history. My knowledge such as it is will probably die with me. But it is rewarding to learn things. After lunch on Monday the Laird produced balsa wood aeroplane kits in packets. It said 8+ on the packet which is the age range normally attracted to making balsa wood aeroplanes out of a kit, winding up the rubber bands and hurling them in the air to see them fall to the ground more or less at once. O’Halloran O’Brien broke his in the construction phase and Uhu had to be fetched. Laura and Matt had Uhu in stock which was a mercy. Dr Zhivago was shown on DVD on the remaining evenings with no moment at which at least one member of the audience was not asleep. Laura turned her face away completely but nevertheless emerged with perfect grasp. We much enjoyed Dr Zhivago which is an awfully good story and very believable. Then it was time to leave Normandy although I was begged not to leave. But as Queen Mary said at the end of the War when it was time to leave Badminton where she had been lodged for safety throughout, ‘Here I have been anything to anybody. Now I must go back to London and begin being Queen Mary all over again.’ I should mention that the Laird’s drone got stuck in a tree way out of reach. The Lairdess was heard to say to the Laird: ‘What am I to do if I’m buying you a new drone every month?’

The Norman Fastness: View from the Bedroom Floor of the Residence

Middle-Class Woodwork Project for Teenager: Quail-Egg Holder Made by Teenage Daughter of Norman Neighbour Where We Lunched on Sunday. Own Quails as Well