Tuesday 28th June 2016

The fifth day since that Black Day. I’m beginning to think about new waste paper baskets for the guest bedrooms. Across the other side of that gulf was our visit to Peter Beale’s Rose Nursery where Robert Nevil was commissioned to buy a yellow scented rose for the ex-wife of one who throbs at the heart of our Nation – or did because 2012 and the Olympics was another age. And Joshua Baring was driving us all over Norfolk, whipping any slow coach in the way with a stinging whip and really just not putting up with Robert Nevil and myself who couldn’t follow the blue blob on Google Maps. Several times our vehicle plunged into the hedgerow in a manner of speaking. Joshua Baring was facing then a deeply minimal Henry James evening with a titled lady the only attendee. Genevieve Suzy went to the house of that titled person’s sister last week for a book launch, she being an important editor. On the day, Genevieve Suzy stood in the offices of Dainty Lady TV with her new miniature dach-y,  Diamonella, proclaiming: ‘Did I say I was going to …. ?’  – ‘On no account must I be late for … ‘ ‘I hope I get to …. before Mariella…’  In fact the mother and father and the two daughters,the titled and the editor,  at one time were said to ‘have London sewn up.’ No theatre show could begin until the father had arrived late and the mother wrote excellently on stains and cupboard management in the home.

Then there was my garden opening which went ahead as usual. I did a nicoise which I thought redundant but it was the chicken salad that was spurned. It’s always the way if you offer a melange – there’s a favourite and least favourite. In any case, the service went well this year with the buffet luncheon in the drawing room, then the public admitted who showed no hint of Brexit, then the tea in the dining room with the new basalt ware tea set and many different personnel from the luncheon.

Before that was the Palm Beach party. Landsdowne Reindorp and Rick Rock gave it in their Versailles apartment by Hyde Park. White jeans were worn of great tightness with azure shirts. Palm Beach greatnesses were over for a tour of English Statelies on a private basis, including one to which the public are not normally admitted. At least somebody loves us. Mingling were the Multis, pushing out with questions, engaging with determination, forceful in their service to others. But later, nearer the Black Day and after it, the Photo Multi emerged as a Brexiter, sweeping all before him, a vast mower mowing forward, unstoppable.

So to now: at the highest level of Our Nation, Lord Arrowby called an emergency tea party on Sunday. Last night Fergus Strachan and Angus Willis offered comfort in the Warehouse apartment with an Asian one-bowl supper. Prince Dmitri also joined. In an upsurge of pre-referendum confidence, Lord Arrowby had bought a new TV. It’s 55 inches. But doesn’t work, in the manner of TVs these days. Gone is the time of switch on and off. Lord Arrowby went absolutely mad and refused to re-tune. Later he showed his vestigial nipple – or so he said. He said he was evolved from some kind of sow or bitch dog with a double row of nipples to accommodate a litter. I got a cake from Waitrose which was welcomed by the shattered company. Lord Arrowby, of course, can put a kettle on but has no notion of further catering. He didn’t care for the Duchy biscuits I had bought but agreed to distribute them in the highest corridors of power. Even there they like biscuits.

So we go on.