Friday 28th September 2018

I’m actually mid-Cycle. It’s getting better and better. The darling new Swedish Wotan called John Lundgren whom we adored at Bayreuth suffered near collapse in Rheingold on Monday. But better by Wednesday. More of The Ring later. I hope he keeps going. Four Cycles! The thought of it! The main thing just now is outfits: The Ring demands 4 different outfits, as well as vast amounts of money to attend, not to mention the sacrifice of time. How did he manage it? Wagner: 140 years later still ruling lives. I’m pushing summer modes into Autumn though. A brown/gold summer suit for Siegfried tomorrow, I think. No bright colours for Siegfried – all that dreadful forge work calls for dun shades. Monday for Got, I think it will be colder, so red velvet.

But looking back and saying goodbye to the summer. I opened my garden for unpaid carers for one afternoon. It was the National Garden Scheme Mental Health Week. Really it was a tea-party. Only three came. They disliked each other and had many grievances which took several hours to work over. Then two turned up who weren’t actually Macmillan Nurses but worked in the fund raising department thereof. I was worried about who cared for the carers though. My icing worked! But cake still grainy, despite reducing Mary Berry’s amount of baking powder.

Then Aunt Lavinia came down to the Far West for five days with her dog, Millicent, who sat in my chair while we were at luncheon (the roast bird was near perfect). Millicent got out of her floor basket and into my chair. The great thing was the way she re-arranged the cushion for her comfort, as you can see in the graph. I had to get the vac at once. Hairs all over the chair.  No sooner was I back from the Far West, with just enough time for the Berlioz Prom (Mrs May was present but I never saw her: it was great: I know nothing about Berlioz but love the idea of him: completely impossible, excessive, manic and near-barking. Mu is kind of gloriously obvious yet delicately wrought) … oh and don’t forget the closing Glyndebourniana…. Vanessa: really rather loved.  By Samuel Barber. Nobody had ever heard of it before. Weird reverse Sleeping Beauty story, intriguing, mu elusive, possibly ironic for long passages, like film mu, many different styles, great moments for important sopranos as in a grand opera but all seen through strange refracting distancing prism, production by same man as did Covent Garden Ring, Warner, but much better. Had mirrors that sometimes you could see through partially, generally black and glossy, borderline real, somewhere legendary in winter, yet cossies where 1950s rich. So no ideah what it was all about but impact was tremendous. An occasion but just a perf, which is what one expects at Glyndebourniana. We picnicked in the loggia. Cold rack of lamb: preserved lemons v. sour. Won’t be doing it again. Prince Dmitri did a brilliant bean, tuna and egg thing. Must get the recipe. My apricot tart let down by second-rate apricots.

Left Glyndebourniana for the very last time this year, leaving it in a very much better state than we found it.

I was going to say: sudden call from the Mid Far West. The damsons were ready. Robert Nevil and I had to leave London at once to pick. We ran over the dog with the pick-up truck on the back of which we stood for picking. Thank God not a heavy cropping year. Dog yelped and has lived. Dog also ate enormous qualities of apples and plums that had dropped on the ground in the orchard which it shouldn’t have done. Dogs, really. Terrible consequences. Robert Nevil has taken up coughing like a really old man; also defiant flatulence. We visited a nearby Gay in an Arts and Crafts mansion and had an agreeable hour picking over rich people in London known to the Gay who go on art tours and give millions to museums: also know all the Head of Museums. I felt very at home. Heads of Museums is very much my world. The only drawback was, on arrival his dog leapt up and stained my pale stone slacks by Tiger of Sweden with its muddy feet. Nobody thought anything of it. But imagine if that had happened in London. It would have been la fin de Monde.