Friday 5th May 2023

Back in February at a luncheon, somebody said, ‘Who’s looking forward to the Coronation?’ There was a silence. Although a tiny handful of Guardian reading mask-wearers were present, overwhelmingly it was brigadiers, retired Eton schoolmasters and business people. Lilibet left such a gap, there were two huge Royal events last year – could one wind up for another momentous occasion?

But just this morning, without warning, the distant rumble of impending greatness could be heard. The last Coronation is emblazoned on the mind of everyone over 50 or even 40. You didn’t have to be born at the time to have been there. Now we have glimpsed the next one – that photo of the Gold Coach going down the Mall, rehearsing in the middle of the night, hints at the splendour to come.

How could another equal it? I’m hurt by people calling themselves ‘Republicans’ but it is their right. It would be comforting to know that they really understood history and the part the Monarchy has played, a continuous line of descent for 1000 years, nowhere more inescapable than in the Abbey, in making our Country what it is – almost unique in having a functioning political system so early whose beginnings were established by Henry V11 and which has evolved successfully ever since. With the exception of the Civil War, of course. We tried a Presidential system and didn’t like it. A Monarch turned out to be easier to manage. Thus it is that Great Britain has not been a Police State, way in advance of most other countries, since 1688. Competing factions found a way to co-exist. Change has happened but no upheaval of revolution. Our Nation became a powerhouse of enterprise, thought and culture, under the glorious panoply of constitutional Monarchy.

An alternative would either be less democratic or would diminish our Nation. Some ‘Republicans’ appear to think a Head of State whom nobody has heard of (as in Germany) is a good idea!  But I don’t mind admitting, I have approached the Coronation, or rather evaded it, with dread. What if something should go wrong? The horrible protesters.. The King and Queen not young. What if they self-wet? Or worse. Soil their thrones? Or drop dead at the vital moment? Let’s hope and pray their attendants have provided adequate reinforcement. Last night a huge figure from the museum world was at an Opening, often grilled by Royston King at Academy breakfasts; he is to be in the Nave tomorrow but his toilet worries were overwhelming. How to get through from 8.30, when to be seated, until 1.30 when released.

Transition is jeopardy. But now I hear clearly from afar who our King will be. A King of Suffering, different from his mother who manifested a disembodied ideal of duty and service. The new King has done things. Whoever he was, his achievements in life would be notable. Royalties were simultaneously human and not human. His suffering and endurance, his tremulous, unconfident personality, yet strengthened in a furnace of pain and scorn, embed a powerful human story at the heart of the life of the Nation. Aside from that, or even in spite of it, has been the consistent determination to have an impact on those less fortunate, on society as a whole.

I cannot believe that in my time, tomorrow, all being well, the King and Queen will enter the Abbey in the fullest State. Once again, ‘I was Glad’ will be played. Then and only then, will we begin to see this Reign for what it is.

Thursday 20th April 2023

We dined out in the Far West. One guest, over 90, was offered two sorts of artisanal cheese biscuits (the kind that can gash the roof of your mouth if you don’t watch out). One was normal grain colour, the other, black, the charcoal range. ‘I wonder if anyone ever manages to get rid of the black ones,’ he said, passing the plate along. Of this same man, the Gay Mother said, ‘He doesn’t eat greens. It’s a wonder he’s alive.’

The Gay Mother herself mentioned a daffodil she’d seen growing at Lady Sweetdriver’s. It was a coffee morning for charity. Lady Sweetdriver herself had told her its name. ‘I’ve had it in my garden ever since,’ the Gay Mother said. ‘But has it remained true?’ I asked. ‘So far, yes.’ But this coffee morning was fifty years ago at least. Lady Sweetdriver was gathered in 1995.

The Radio Times rarely gives satisfaction. ‘Why have I got to have that awful face starring at me?’ the Gay Mother says of any face on the cover. But with this issue it was Mary Beard within. ‘She seems to be determined to look as awful as possible.’

Friday 14th April 2023

To the Black Cultural Archive after a Private Breakfast at the Royal Academy for the Spanish Exhibition. I put much effort into explaining to a woman that a certain Ecclesiastical garment was displayed the wrong way round, according to the Vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street, who is an expert in these things. I even showed her the Facebook post concerned. It turned out she was the President of the Royal Academy. Rosemary Lomax-Simpson is now in a wheelchair for the purposes of viewing an exhibition. Royston demolished all Lady Minor’s schemes for the Academy. She was wearing an intensely pleated white blouse, a blazing example of white work in the modern age.

At the Black Cultural Archive, further hordes of Rudis unearthed. Death has done this man no end of good. The more dead he gets, the more he grows in artistic stature. Also, death has encouraged not a drying-up but an increase in the plenitude of his opera. I am convinced it will never end. Rudis will pour forth for ever. I bought two more and a further 20 or so were selected to be conveyed to the Lake District for an Autumn exhib. That left countless portfolios, not to mention the pottery collection. There was a high-level summit at the Archive to assess the Rudi outlook for the next 12 months, after which … who knows?

They’ll never get to the end of the Rudis.

Royston must take much of the credit for the Resurrection to Eternal Life of Rudi, along with Fabulette Moira, the art historian and expert on Church artefacts, whose daughter was also present in a figure-hugging jump suit in green from Asos. She was all but nude and superb. Somehow is a huge insider at the Foreign Office. Had masses of gossip about Carrie Johnson and handbags, thinks the Monarchy will survive and said boyfriends often dissatisfied that she has a black mother. Can you believe it? Bastards. I thought Young People weren’t like this.

My New Rudi Hung in the Drawing Room. It will Cause Outrage. Too Bad. I have another of Sunflowers on a Black Background. I can’t Remember Where I’ve put It

Friday 14th April 2023

I can’t believe the Prime Minister said Penis.

How strange: Every Spring the camellias, the magnolias reliably turning up, never failing, always there. With a splash of yellow forsythia which many despise although I think a brilliant glare of yellow is just what you need to get the growing season going. Strange, therefore, that never before do I seem to have seen these intensely frilly small cherry trees. They must always have been there. But somehow not seen, or not seen properly. They’re very bedroom, it’s true. And impossible to photograph, but I tried.

Never Before More Frilly – at Least as Seen by Me

Always There – but Never Before Seen by Me – Apparently

Monday 10th April 2023

‘Because the tomb is empty, our hearts are full.’ Thus Welby of Canterbury from the pulpit yesterday morning. We saw at Canterbury Cath in September 2021. He shut the little wooden gate to his Archbishoply Throne area himself. The Gay Mother now has a radio service, the actual being too early for her. She did take Good Friday real church though and gave a bunch of daffs from her garden for the Church Easter flowers. Easter Saturday Church decorating is not on her schedule any more.

Easter Saturday is always a great day, when at tea at last cake can be served and chocolate eaten in the sure and certain knowledge that the Lord will arise again.

I did not do a Classic Easter cake this year. It has orange juice in the Vic sponge and in the icing. The crucial aspect is the crystalized violet decoration. One year, Aunt Lavinia said, ‘Why not have real violets?’ And we did.

The Gay Mother has gawn off lamb. For weeks I’ve been racking: how do you have lamb at Easter which you must have and not have it? It was like that time the Laird of Usk wrote to the papers to ask how you have a fish course for people who don’t eat fish. In the end we managed a Navarin Printaner with the youngest Spring lamb and sparkling vegetables.

The full heart of Easter, full of hope is also accompanied by dread. Hope and dread are yoked. Particularly in the garden: what if the plants don’t grow? What if the seeds don’t germinate? Will there be enough to fill the borders and ring the changes? What if, like last year, it’s a wretched, cold season and no annuals grow? What if some plants smother others?

Spring Blessing: a Navarin Printaner for Easter Day

Tuesday 4th April 2023

Val managed to hem that length of silk organza I got at Southall last autumn to dress my bed.  Rainbow Fabrics. Only known to a few.

Exquisite work by Val. He was presiding on the sofa, speaking of Ottolenghi’s chicken with rosewater and hazelnuts. He had acquired the necessary ingredients but had not reached the stage of execution. Would I go up the Co-op for luncheon options?

We had a quiche with Dr Zhivago behind us on the TV. Val said he’d watched it many times but had no idea what happens.

The main purpose was to get the faded edge of my bedroom curtain removed and the hem re-assembled. Val instructed and wielded the scissors, while I did the sewing. We were like exiled German Royalties wending our way through the afternoon with light sewing duties, melancholy but somehow at last at rest.

Dr Zhivago burbled away. Revolutionary outrage seemed to be involved but quite how and with what consequences it was impossible to tell. Julie Christie’s frocks were horrid. So frumpy. Then she had a hat. The main impression was men’s clipped acting voices going on agreeably in that Saturday afternoon TV of yesteryear way and Julie Christie a little more staccato.

As it happens, it was a Saturday afternoon. But you could say every afternoon is a Saturday afternoon for Val these days.

Val’s really big news: he tried the Co-op’s own brand Camembert. It’s acceptable, indeed more than acceptable.

Speaking of food items, did I mention that the Gay Mother has hugely promoted Pentland Brigg Kale from Waitrose this winter. You must try it, even if just for the name. What is a Brigg? Pentland is in the very north of Scotland, near the Castle of Mey, summer home of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, therefore supreme.

Val was looking at some source of information. ‘Challenge Anneka! is back,’ he exclaimed. Surprise and delight. ‘She always had lovely teeth,’ he added wistfully. But, by the sound of it, her teeth are still going strong.

‘Should we book our funerals now, to avoid disappointment later?’ Val enquired nearing tea-time. His own preference is for Pure Cremation because he has always been known for his purity.

When the time comes, this wish must be remembered. I never knew there was a range of cremation possibilities.

Well, the curtain was finished. Not perfect but a huge improvement on the frayed horror I’ve been living with for a year or more and a real advance in the restoration and conservation of my private bedroom. The private parts of the house get left behind when so much goes into the public rooms.

Frayed and Decayed: my Bedroom Curtain in my Private Bedroom

Frayed No More: New Every Morning …

Wednesday 29th March 2023

Royston King phoned. It was like that sketch where Jenufa and Dawn French are editors of Womanly Woman, a Women’s magazine. They’re planning pages and doing so well. They call out to Knitting in the next room, they whirr beautifully to get the title for a piece on James Bond – ‘Premium Bond’ – what could be better? Jane Asher rings up – no, they don’t want to feature her kitchen again but how about ‘Flawless Flans’? They’re roaring along, absolutely top form, when suddenly Dawn stands up and circles… ‘It’s all so trivial… I can’t go on… ‘ Jenufa is tested to the limit: ‘Brides,’ she says eventually. ‘Autumn brides.’ Dawn recovers: ‘Oh yes, Brides, it’s the biggest day of their life, isn’t it? It does mean something after all.’ And she’s back down again and forging forward.

The day Royston King phoned was just after Lilibet had been declared a Princess. That’s ‘Lilibet’, the spring of Harry and Meghan, named in an act of outrageous appropriation, a terrible colonisation of Her Late’s (oh where is Lilibet?) inner pet name. ‘It’s so ridiculous,’ Royston said. ‘All these titles. Am I going mad? What’s the point….?’

I didn’t fail. This is the glory of the Monarchy, I said. It means everything and nothing. How wonderful that the burning core of our National Life is raging splendour. It would be awful if it meant anything. Meaning something means the House of Commons. Means arguing and nastiness. It means politics. Or being a nothing country like Germany, social democrat, with a ‘president’, the heart of the Nation a nothing grey Government room with a nobody in it.

No, no, no. Never in the United Kingdom. We have an unbroken line of descent from the Conqueror, nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of, our Monarchy has survived on merit and made the United Kingdom the great country it is, progressing and changing without the upheaval of revolution, the secret of our success, built on the careful avoidance of making sense, which is the dreariest thing.

The last thing you want is making sense.

Thursday 23rd March 2023

The back door got left open all night. It was me, Adrian Edge, that had opened it. The Gay Mother said, ‘Well, it wasn’t cold and there were no burglars,’ as if burglars were no more than a natural phenomenon like squirrels or pigeons that might get in.

Coming back from the garden centre, I raised the question of the Easter menus. ‘I don’t like lamb,’ the Gay Mother said as if this has always been the case. But only a year ago she was adoring a lamb shank as a new experience. She would like to revive Piperade though. That’s the Spanish dish of red pepper and tomato cooked to a pulp then eggs scrambled into it.

After lunch one day I happened to take a magnolia walk. A Magnolia Campbellii had flowered. The owner was thrilled because it was blooming early – 25 years after planting, not 30 as expected.

On my return, the Gay Mother said few who plant a Campbellii live to see it flower. Not only this:  it can’t be planted by just anybody but only those ‘who know what they’re doing.’

The Gay Mother has never planted a Magnolia Campbellii, not having the right soil. But had she done she would surely have lived to see it flower.

Wednesday 15th March 2023

So many brilliant moments, all lost.

At the Garden Museum, Aunt Lavinia said, ‘That’s never a buddleia.’ It was a beautifully wrought exhib of Lucian Freud plant paintings, labels crisp and informative, no jargon or ideology. Many rare pieces. They mocked up Debo’s guest bathroom at Chatsworth with his cyclamen muriel. At his best, Freud paints plants with bracing ruthless neutrality, an intense pure gaze, ‘to an airy thinness beat’. But the buddleia in the dismal Paddington back garden is smudgy and the heavy pencil drawings I don’t like.

The Garden Museum Cafe was closed for a fund-raising event. I could see the place-names through the window. I could also see our favourite Museum Director through the window. So, w

ho is ‘Thursday Sembler’? Or ‘Noah Beatrice’? Or ‘Hilda Thurlough’? No sign of the usuals – no Stoker and Amanda, nor Ladies E and R?

I made a plant discovery though: Heavenly Bamboo, growing in the courtyard there where Captain Bligh is buried and the Tradescants. It’s not a bamboo at all. A dark evergreen with showy clusters of bright red berries. Good enough for the Garden Museum…

So lunch in exile at the Cinnamon Club. Fixed price menu good but not hot. Not hot is a new feature of restaurants since the Time of Wrong. Possibly anti-climate change measures.

In residence I had the madeira dinner. Stefan Jaeger proposed it months ago. He’d got a bottle of madeira from 1827, the year of Beethoven’s death. Harry Rollo and Mercury Mr Kitten were to dine, me, Adrian Edge, to menu around the madeira. As the day drew near, increasing dread. How ever to live up to a Madeira from 1827? What if the bottle broke in transit? Or, on being opened, was found to be empty?

One was on a knife-edge with ruin. First of all, Mr K went to the North and got a sore throat so couldn’t come. He said he would never go there again. But I expect he will. Well, the bottle arrived in a back-pack. I’d been granted a vision of the menu which I was able to make earthly but only at the last could I find a butcher offering filet beef at an imaginable price. So: little squares of pain polane au raisons mounted with paté, taralli with the first of the madeira in the drawing room, then filet beef with rosti potatoes (to give a German feel, although rosti are Swiss) juniper and port jus, purple sprouting broccoli. Poached rhubarb and ginger with self-made madeira cake, plus some rare Italian cheese called Stracchino to polish off the madeira. I got the cheese free because it was beyond the ‘best before’ date – a miracle and going some way to making up for the cost of the filet beef. As Maria says in the Music’s Sound, ‘When God closes a door, he opens a window somewhere else.’

In the end we were knocking back that madeira at £3000 a glass (Stefan Jaeger got it from a rich lady whose cellar was flooded so all the labels washed awff, slashing the value). How did we dare approach? Really a reverent sniff followed by a backwards withdrawal without looking back as if from the Cenotaph should have been the limit. I’m preserving the bottle and inhale from it regularly. A transfigured grape arises, incredibly material although a smell. But a living liquid alive when Beethoven was alive, unlikely to be encountered again and impossible of description. How would you describe Madame Makropulis, were you to meet her? There were three layers at least of quite different experience when the madeira was consumed, not sweet, not dry, not heavy, not light, with a strange fumy ‘finish’.

But what of the brilliant talk? Harry Rollo and Stefan Jaeger – so many remarks. All lost. Evap.

The Actual Bottle: Madeira from 1827

Aunt Lavinia: ‘That’s never a Buddleia’

Lucian Freud: Messy

Lucian Freud: Medieval Quality of Tranquility

Lucian Freud: An Olive Leaf. Incredibly Rare Early Work. Superb

Lucian Freud: Chatsworth Bathroom Cyclamen: Stunning

Monday 6th March 2023

Cousin Smurry said we should drive onto the Moor and take 99s from the ice-cream van by the bridge. As it happened the Gay Mother wasn’t thrilled with the lunch at the riverside inn but appreciated the champagne. She took 99 years. Not best pleased. ‘Another year’s gone by,’ she said mysteriously. Otherwise it’s business as usual. The present campaign is to fight, fight for the Right to Roam in the woods to be granted to another elderly lady in the valley. This involves her in a battle with her own land agent, who happens also to have the owner of the wood as a client – awkward. And behind them the hedge-fund manager who owns the shoot. The Gay Mother against the lot of them. She’d walk in the woods if she weren’t 99 and once clubbed a pheasant to death with that cudgel the Gay Father put by the bed every time a convict was out from the prison. Although she did say she wouldn’t do it again.

Nor does she think that Begum should be kept out. In a refugee camp, she’s likely to grow more dangerous. Other countries seek to rehabilitate people like her. The further topic is the Prime Minister of India, who is called Nodi, I believe. He’s evil.