Friday 15th June 2018

To Norfolk to stay with Charlie Hurling and Mr Azure. I’d thought it would be like a hotel purring with maids. It took about half an hour to get my outfits in but then… well, there wasn’t much room for anything else. My possessions were immediately absorbed in a sea of items in the summer house. Endless stock, boxes and boxes, rolls and rolls. Goodness knows. I didn’t think to see my things again. The toilet in the summer house was well, frankly… Mr Azure explained.. in fact later he had a supremely masculine moment flinging up a lid in the garden to reveal the pump which couldn’t to be got to pump more … well, the toilet wasn’t for back toilet, only front. Fergus Strachan was in an ancient tracksuit arrangement in the drawing room in the main house. He didn’t seem to have any outfits planned. The party were lying on a suite that had belonged to Charlie’s grandmother. It was fabulously squashed. The loose covers were cafe au lait with huge flowers in colours. The home was extraordinary. Elfin. Criss-cross windows, concealed behind hedges. A tiny elfin dwelling, very private, very concealed. Every window-sill heaped with ornaments: the world-collection of brass cow-bells in one, all-known green glass balls in another. The cleaner fortunately has obsessive-compulsive disorder and does one sill a week. I think upstairs there were cow-jugs and possibly a huge assemblage of spent mortars. Just room for a bed in the midst of it all.  You’d expect to find little creatures sewn out of moleskin or perhaps the rose-hip fairy living here; not two bold gays of manly build, one quite capable of wearing checked fuchsia slacks and a lime-green jumper.

The thing was I went to the toilet – the other one in the main cott that was fully functioning – but wrenched a little too hard on the handle in celebration of a functioning toilet. Disaster. Something gave in the cistern. We were toiletless in Norfolk. Mr Azure, who seemed to be i/c drains of the two, instituted a bucket regime and Angus Willis complained later of the water all over the floor.

I thought I was going to die actually. No emergency plumber. But somehow the great pluck of the Poor Little Rich Gays, their endurance and fortitude – we got through. We lunched at Great Massingham on the Saturday in the room where Prince Harry had a birthday party once. It was black plates and foams. Very nice. Charlie Hurling bellowed about the anus at every opportunity. The people at the next table first of all covered their children’s ears then turned into little heaps of ash.

On the Sunday I visited Rayham Hall privately. ‘Are we coming?’ Charlie enquired. ‘No,’ I said. This is a big visit in the end. You remember the book launch in March. After which, naturally, I longed and longed for the house. The Marchioness showed me everything; she’d Farrow-and-Ball-ed the Saloon herself. There’d been a terrific amount of plaster coming down in the monumental entrance hall , leaks in bathrooms above, workmen nearly killed but all put right in the end. Huge place. Much bigger than it looks in photos or than gathered from the Christie’s launch. We ventured up all sorts of staircases and into unending attics. The Marchioness had been sanding and filling a massive round window. A great house, though, which nobody knows about, remodelled by William Kent. Very important.

Mr Azure said it would be lunch when I got back. But they were all lying on the three-piece suite. Then they went out for a walk and came straight back again. Fergus Strachan was still in that tracksuit. They watched some trash TV deliberately in a specialist channel. At 7pm lunch was served. Charlie is very devoted to Paxo sage and onion stuffing so the bird was stuffed with Paxo Sage and Onion stuffing which was incredible from the style point of view. There was no sign of any of them going back to London. They went and lay down again on the three-piece. Charlie Hurling insulted Angus’ hair. He said, ‘You’ve got ash die-back hair,’ which isn’t a compliment. I, unfortunately, was wound up for the capital. I had to board. With difficulty I packed. Would I be able to identify my items from the great array in the summer house amongst which they had disappeared? Finally it was done and my Official Car was underway after a remarkable weekend visit.