Farewell to Buckingham Palace for Another Year

Farewell to Buckingham Palace for Another Year – if Spared

Saturday 26th September 2015

Hanging on by a thread, Val was able to attend Buckingham Palace yesterday as the Summer Opening nears its end. The main purpose was to view and form a view of that rucked seam on her yellow garden party coat which I first saw on Press Day in July with Royston King. Val said: ‘Donald Trump? That is not hair, it’s insulating fibre. Who was that frightful right wing American Daily Mail journalist that we saw in Habitat all those years ago? She was working a similar look. Not good.’ Was it Anne Leslie? I wondered. Her hair is more burnished copper wires. I didn’t recall this momentous sighting. Luckily Val had a sudden flash despite being deathly pale with a crutch for support: ‘Janet Daley!’ Oh yes! Whatever happened to her? Still barking away in the Graph, I believe, but never when I buy it. Google gives at once a view of her hair: a glimpse into the future of Right Wing hair?

Speaking of Right Wing, don’t mention the Multis. I’ve been Unfriended on Facebook as a punishment for them spurning my company in the Cretan Village House for which Fergus Strachan had paid and in which they were to have been his guests along with me. Perhaps also because I defeated their evil plan to introduce Aracnia Chronicopoulos into the house, initially without any reference to me despite that I would be staying in the house. But I intend to rise above it. On Thursday, which is my birthday, Robert Nevil, Val (should his health permit) and I intend to lunch at the Multis’ Dockland Cafe regardless.

But back to Le Palais Buckingham. Fearful crowds, which for some reason had not been cleared out of the way, Val threatening to fall over, his condition exacerbated by stop and start. Several times I reminded him: ‘You are Mrs De Winter now.’ He fought on. He thought the Hardy Amies evening dress revolting. Crowds were crowding round the tiara. ‘It’s a tiara,’ Val said, recalling the great aplomb with which Estate Agents, showing properties, fling open the bathroom door and announce, ‘This is the bathroom,’ as if it could be anything else. We battled into the Ball Room and were detained quite a while trying to work out whether the place settings accorded with the menu. Why so many glasses for only 3 courses? But was the cutlery lacking? Finally we decided it was all right. Shattered by that, Val rested on a bench before the display of gifts from visiting Heads of State. We loved the Mexican Tree of Her Life but how would you clean it? Dunk in bucket of Flash intermittently? At last, at last, we gasped into the Music Room and there was the yellow Garden party coat with its compromised seam. I’d tried to get Lady Baring, who upholsters for Graham Norton among others, to come and view it. This seam ought to have been huge. But she was too busy upholstering for the richest man in China… in Eaton Square. Now finally finally a true expert was before the seam. Val paused. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Something’s wrong. In fact it’s the seam from Hell.’

I should also mention that Genevieve Suzy has this week filled the Dainty Lady TV screen with hedgehogs. Owing to recent elevation, she is now a celebrity so is therefore spending the next week at a hydro. No publicity.