Tuesday 12th January 2010

I thought you’d like a change from the Sales. But never fear!  Not over yet. Final revision of H Nicks, Harrods and The Library still to be carried out. Then it’s retrenchment. I’m blooming with tips.

Now, huge rush to get to the Opening of the London Art Fair at the Business Design Centre, Islington, London, England. Then afterwards I push out a dinner in my home for the Multis, Eddie Sedgewick, Laura Malcolm  and her son. Every thing ready; I thought my table was looking superbly simple and non-restaurant with the bare polished wood, the old-fashioned mats I got off the Gay Mother, and would please my follower, Nicholas Taudevin – but something missing, I couldn’t think what,  it needed just a little lift. Twenty minutes before I realised – no glasses!  Not surprising looking a little flat, sans sparkle.

I had hoped to give the Multis tickets for the Art Fair opening as a small redress for all their general lavishness, but, guess what, they already had special VIP ones given free.

Let’s consider Winter Sun – as a new topic as much as anything else. Poor Little Rich Gays do love it. Do you know what it is?  Do you know what to do on a Winter Sun holiday?

Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver, Laura travelling officially and rarely as Mrs Matt Driver,  go down to Cape Town on Thursday for five nights (I like the way the pilot on flights to Africa always says, ‘we going down to…Jo’burg, Nairobi…’). It is a combined business trip. Matt has self-sworded and traded in his First Class ticket for two en vache (I’m sure that’s not the French for cattle).

Lucky them! They’re at the Radisson Blu for 3 nights, then at The Monkey Valley Resort, Noordhoek for two. Mrs Driver describes this last as ‘marvellous, run-down’. Could be perfect for Poor Little Rich Gays who, as you know, yearn for a top establishment in need of refurb. Prices down! Who cares about bare wires sticking out from electric sockets. But this Monkey might be a bit much. Only £65 a night. I’ve looked on-line. Very nooky,wooky – a lot of wood. We shall hear more, no doubt.

Strange this yearning for Winter Sun. We always want what we haven’t got.

Robert Nevil is in Calcutta – for three weeks. It’s boiling but is it Poor Little Rich Gay? All I’ve heard is that he went to a flower show with big, vulgar dahlias and chrysanths and very poor roses. Usually he goes to a body-building contest – and he stays with his Indian friends. Lots of servants. Ladies are very religious, go on charabanc outings to visit shrines of Krishna and keep little doll-Krishnas tucked into their bosoms for his warmth and comfort.

So life in Cal home from home.

The Smallmeal/Limpneys, on the other hand, are in Mauritius, at the Royal Palm. This is the hotel where Sean Swallow, the garden designer, in another January, said to chronically dietary, 72-year-old Princess Lee Radizwill, ‘Go on, you’re amongst friends; have a main course’, causing her never to be seen in the dining room again.

In previous years, the Smallmeal/Limpneys have had Africa – hotel with a own private butler; most of the time spent thinking of things for him to do – without success. The Multis too took Kenya for several years but have renounced winter sun, for the time being.

Also calling into question the future of Winter Sun is the decision of Ed Jasper, the bed linen expert, to go to St Barts this winter for the last time.

What does this bode?

Even I have known Winter Sun. Oh yes!  I have achieved it. The Blue Haven Hotel, Tobago. I must tell you more one day. Eddie Sedgewick’s been there too.

Lord Arrowby is to board for India in February. As he usually does. How fascinating it would be to see his progress? Do the dates coincide? Could I just be free to join him for a few days?Could I scratch up the money from somewhere?

I think he’d rather die.

We shall return to Winter Sun. What a subject!  And, maybe, better imagined than actually taken.

My Table for My Post-London Art Fair Dinner - Something Missing, Apart from Spoons?

Do You See What was Missing Now?