Sunday 29th October 2017

Astonishing range of topics from the Gay Mother within minutes of arrival in the Far West: Edwina Mountbatten much to the fore; how wizened and aged she was when seen at the garden party shortly after the War – the biog reveals that the Royal Family were displeased with her over the Paul Robson affair but she was displeased with them; the frozen prawn cupboard at Tesco in a terrible muddle and remained so despite complaint; the marauding pheasants, of course, and the connected visit of the friend of Prince William’s who’d wanted to know about her Euphatorium Ligustrinum (it is the most sacred bush); not to mention, the Iron Age settlements on the Moor and Pendle Moon’s book about Partition, which had to be ordered specially.

We took a gruelling tour of horrid, creepy Cornwall with its poison icing of money and pedigree dogs. But first was a small rellie lunch for my birthday at the Gastro Pub, a visit to the garden of the ancestral home, a harvest festival evensong and Cousin Teddy’s memorial exhibition of paintings followed by outdoor windy lunch. All that branch of the family were eccentric and buried themselves in their house (talk about rambling, but only one generation back in fact) far down in the river valley, writing novels, constructing works of philosophy and painting pictures, caring nothing whether anyone took any notice. Cousin Lunetta got so that she wouldn’t leave that fastness even for a family funeral, let alone a wedding. Yet Cousin Paquita’s father had been intimate with two kings and it was said her mother corresponded privately with Her Present Majesty in her capacity as a White Witch. Cousin Teddy’s Italian grandfather is buried at San Miniato and was a grandee of Firry. One of the Italian aunts was granted the privilege of being able to copy at the Pitti. So they were in the world once but left it. Cousin Teddy’s paintings are covetable when in pewter and sea shades, the green not so good. Too yellow. Landscapes of our beloved places in the Far West. I’m angling to get 4 in the auction, the Gay Mother was given one. In gilt frames, they’ll give the home an ancestral feel and importance at reasonable cost.

So on to sinister Cornwall. We’d quite forgotten Toilet (or Looe) is a big place. The hotel was strangely impenetrable. There was a howling gale and I was anxious to get the Gay Mother, at 93, in. But there was no front door. Just a glassed in veranda full of people having afternoon tea. It turned out you were meant to barge through the door in the glass and manoeuvre selves and luggage around the tea-takers. I got a bit snappy. I’ve never known a hotel more difficult to get into or out of as a matter of fact. A back door was revealed but to get to it you had to pass through the dining room and many passages with squeezy fire-doors. It took me three trips to insert my outfits into the hotel. Trying to hang them up in the room I became overwrought and thought I couldn’t go on.

The one thing the Gay Mother wanted to do was walk in the garden with its sea view in the gale. So that meant another great blast of air for the tea-takers. A wag had been at work. There was a fat man in plaster sitting on a seat; although quite unbelievable as a human being and not a surprise after the first sighting we still jolted every time we saw him. A watering-can watering glass droplets and a cement pig also featured as optical illusions. The next day the Gay Mother announced that we were to visit a church visible from the hotel across several valleys. She said there might be some tablets to some of our remote ancestors. We set off across a terrific field sloping violently towards the sea. My bootees were soaked through. Then there was a stile, cruelly configured so that one of 93 couldn’t climb over it. The desired church was still in view but there was nothing for it but to go back the way we’d come, except the Gay Mother cunningly worked out that by tacking along the bottom of the field and up the other side from the one we’d come down, it would be less steep. When we got back to square one, it turned out we were to walk just as far in the other direction, down an abandoned lane, past an abandoned farm, then all the way back again. No explanation given. At last lunch but the hotel was packed with vicious retired so we had to perch on drawing room arm chairs. Now we attempted the church in the Official Car. But it was brutally locked. We sat in the churchyard for a bit wondering how there could be so many dead in such a tiny place right by the sea. The ancestors with their tablets (if indeed there) will have to wait, possibly for ever, for will the Gay Mother ever go back? Then it was on to the Duchy of Cornwall Nursery to get another Euphatorium Ligustrinum for one of her neighbours plus a silver birch for where the box used to be and one other plant – can’t remember what.

Wicked Stile, Impossible for One of 93

Path Along Which We Walked

The Longed-For Church

Yes, But What if you Just Want to Visit the Church? 

Creepy, Menacing Cornwall, From the Hotel Bedroom 

Sea-View

Wednesday 18th October 2017

Constanza Elford, Reggie’s Publicity Czar, said Reggie had been seen swaying graciously up the street, bearing his new ceramic, or part of it. Would it crash to the ground? Agony. But just right for the new ceramic which everybody agrees pushes to new boundaries including the boundaries of its own existence, as has never been done before. How can a ceramic be so vividly there yet disappear at the same time? All the rules are broken. Reggie has been telling everybody that a village in Berkshire with a peculiar name was to feature somehow, but in the event there is no sign of any village, nor indeed any artistic anchorage such as is normally found in a work of art. Yet the rhythm of assembly and dissolution somehow resolves into a shape and an elegant harmony. Some have clamoured for more ceramic, for a sequel as it were, but Reggie’s ceramic is complete in its incompleteness.

All the world assembled in the same suite of rooms by Robert Adam as the last time Reggie launched a ceramic. ‘Princess Galitzin, do you know Joshua Baring?’ ‘Guinevere Pelham, do you know Joshua Baring?’ So I seemed to be saying more than once. If I could remember who anyone was. Rufus Pitman made brilliant remarks. Joshua Baring disappeared. Robert Nevil was with Lady Eastbourne, who always leaves early. Guy Bostock appeared looking v. spruce in a spray-on jumper. He was accompanied by a charming young man who knew me. I felt completely at home although I didn’t know him which was awful. I don’t remember what he said, but someone people ray out enthusiasm and interest. The content isn’t important. Rufus thought this man is the one Guy is going marry but it wasn’t. But maybe now Guy will switch just because Rufus said… Lord Arrowby was telling Joshua Baring that he’s a nice person. They’ve never got on since the affair of the teeth, but who now remembers what Joshua said about Lord Arrowby’s teeth? It can’t have been that bad. And the lordly teeth are universally acknowledged to be outstanding. It was Lord Arrowby’s birthday that very day. So he deserved special treatment. I explained to him that he’d been talking to a Graham Sutherland owner without knowing it. He doesn’t like that kind of thing. Despite rationing as to drink, I was soon deranged. ‘But you didn’t mention Reggie’s ceramic on television,’ I said to a leading ceramic buyer, with what was supposed to be a playful upward glint. ‘And you are?’ the leading ceramic buyer said. There were various other things that went wrong.

There was another key in which the party played which was all Reggie’s friends from beyond the world of ceramics who might just have heard of the North Circular Road even if they’ve never seen it. There’s Basil who was an early mobile phone user, later dealt in vintage American cars with wings and teeth and now is a film agent; also has a wife, possibly. Basil is absolutely marvellous, endlessly invigorated and renewed, reality completely at his command. Marcel had come all the way from San Francisco, where he is wistful and dreamy. It was like a miracle, seeing him again after all these years.

At this party I became entangled with Kernow Hellizon re: the next party i.e. the launch of Kernow’s latest work. Rather like discussing the menu for dinner while having lunch: very wrong. But I couldn’t grasp that it’s not to be at the Notting Hill Guinness lady’s but another Guinness manifestation in Holland Park. W14 as a matter of fact. This went on and on.

Finally Reggie made a speech in rhyming couplets. He always does this and it’s perfect because the problem of a pre-written speech sounding stilted is overcome. Besides Reggie’s brilliant at rhyming couplets. You can see the rhymes coming without being at all sure what they’ll be nor quite believing them when they come. Incredible anticipation.

Sunday 15th October 2017

We had the moonlit beach barbecue and it was magical. Even Charlie Hurling stopped sending surprise film clips of fornicating trees and a mystery penis that sprang from nowhere and whacked some American 1950s cherry-pie jivers to the ground. Merle Barr was concerned. ‘He spends a lot of time looking at pornography,’ she remarked. Merle was i/c the kitty. But on the beach, the kitty melted away in the moonlight. I was wondering how much it would cost not to be in the kitty. Merle’s head for figures was alarming. Once she commanded millions, as Head of Children’s Speaking. ‘I know money,’ she said. She had to fight in her corner. With male gays at her night and day, making lewd remarks at every opportunity. Even a ordinary bush beside the road provoked a lewd remark.  It wouldn’t have gone down well on TV. There’d have been complaints but Charlie Hurling can’t help it.

Walnuts were Angus Willis’s main theme for the Cretan food this time. Walnuts were huge. Chopped into the yoghurt dip for the barbecued aubergine whip, for instance. A close second was octopus, of which Angus is the world leader in cooking. Freeze, then boil then barbecue. Nobody else knows this. Third was rabbit. Fourth was Beans Gigante: no not butterbeans. Incredibly rare and local. The grilling and detail on the beach was a marvel – not least as there’s absolutely nothing in the Cretan shops.

Another day, Charlie Hurling said he only wanted to go to the place on the cover of the guide book Merle had. But he didn’t come to Arani, where Merle pointed out a prospect of two apses at the back of a church – very simple, off-white, absolutely no ornamentation. Just like the picture on the cover of the guide book although not exactly, but near enough. ‘He’d never have known,’ Merle said.  Then Charlie left early for London, saying the rabbit was off, and his beloved Cloudless had been writhing all night and back and forth to the facilities. Later from London he lobbed more penis pictures while enquiring after the wedding equipment of Fern’s husband. Luckily she was once a nurse and has seen everything.

After the barbecue, Angus’s dog bowl or possibly a vintage metal container for chicken feed, missing its handle – anyway it went missing. Had been brought specially from London for styling, Angus was raging round the other Cretan village houses, when word came from his own Cretan village house that it had been found. So that was a mercy. I showed Cloudless Brahms the arrangements in my bedroom, especially the curious half-doors of the wardrobe that made the clothes look like horses stabled. Also the socket mounted out of reach half way up the wall. I knew he’s be interested being in the style world.  In the middle of the night, The Archers theme tune followed by an actual epi of The Archers blared from Charlie and Cloudless’s bedroom. Their feet could be seen through the unclosed door. But no sign of bed socks to match the matching iPhone cover, hat and sponge bag with which Archie was equipped in the daytime. We lunched on the last day at the Fontini Restaurant hard by the sea. Upon arrival I found that I had no clothes for lunch. No trousers, no top, just beach wraps and towels. Miss Miracle kindly lent me a cardy. It became apparent from the stiffness of the button holes that she’d never done it up. ‘I see now the advantage of clothes being unmarked,’ she said, for the first time from the outside, as it were, being able to view the full extent of how her cardy was marked. She was kind enough to add: ‘And how you are never marked.’ I was pleased. Because, as we know, I am afflicted by marks most terribly. I’ve got two at the moment in fact.

Later, as we lounged on the beach in the tragic, thrilling last rays of summer sun before London and the winter, Merle confined that she’d had a dream. Dinner guests were arriving but there was a hippo in her garden. The guests peered out and discovered further wildlife such as not normally found in Islington – lions, tigers etc. ‘It’s rather hazardous in your garden,’ they said, making light of it. But Merle was in a bind trying to think of how to get rid of the hippo. It could crash through the wall and straight into her dinner party. I suppose this was a hostess-anxiety dream. Even so, it would be frightful to find dangerous animals unaccountably on the premises just as one was about to begin service, especially hippos which crash through walls and are really horrid.

Once the kitty was settled up – I owed €97.42 – we all returned to London by air.

Beach Barbecue: the Actual Barbecue

Beach Barbecue: Peppers to be Barbecued

Octopus in Final Stages of Barbecue

Beach Barbecue: Pre-Styling

Angus Willis’s Dog Bowl that was Lost then Found. That which Was Lost was Found

Moonlit Beach Barbecue’s Magic

Charlie Hurling: Matching iPhone cover from Wallpaper at the Beverley Wilshire Hotel Los Angeles

Charlie Hurling: Matching Sponge Bag

Charlie Hurling: Hat to Match iPhone cover and sponge bag. Taken from Wallpaper at the Beverley Wilshire Hotel Los Angeles

Typical Charlie Hurling whatsApp photo shocker

Curious Stabling for Frockage in my Room at the Cretan Village House

Socket Half Way up Wall Required Upending of Vase which had Formerly Held Those Lovely Flowers

Monday 9th October 2017

So finally it came. On Sunday 1st October, in a simple Cretan Village House, I took 60 years. It was a great relief, after much dread, when it came. Cloudless Brahms did a special flower arrangement. He is one of Shoreditch’s leading flower arrangers, amongst many other things and no longer buys Designer Labels, although with finger brilliantly on the pulse of fashion. It was incredible. I felt more alive, not less, as logic would dictate.

Merle Barr suggested a gorge. ‘It’s your birthday,’ she said. ‘You must decide.’ Well, I was quite decided on the gorge. And what a coup it turned out to be. I took the wheel and only ladies accompanied, Merle herself and Fern, Angus’s sister. Both played brilliantly the role of ladies in a car being driven by a man. ‘You’re too close to the edge… I feel queasy… why have you slowed down?…. you’re going too slowly… you’re in the wrong gear… I feel queasy… go faster…’ At journey’s end, Fern said she was beginning to recover. I was not sure how we would get back, me having started out more or less able to drive. In the cement village before the gorge, Merle said, ‘There’s a tourist bus outside that restaurant.’ So we went to the other one, which was cement that had once been painted yellow ochre. There was a Cretan boy playing with a puppy and several fat men way off fitness’s peak having Sunday lunch, one also blotchy. A woman was on her feet and serving but spoke no English so the blotchy man had to be consulted, as well as the puppy boy, who howled ‘No’ very firmly in English when asked if he could speak English. Greek salad was agreed upon, despite absence of English, as well as water and beer. The woman appeared with a huge bowl of the salad which we set about dividing between us when she appeared with two more – one each. Then she loomed with beans of various kinds. I said, ‘She’s going to bring an uninvited rabbit next.’ Luckily she didn’t because we were facing a huge Angus Willis dinner (only one of Britain’s leading chefs) back at the Cretan Village House. But she did bring water melon and raki. There was talk as to what it would all cost. Merle and Fern betted on €12 – and they were right.

Then we went to the gorge. It was like Germany or Scotland rather than Crete. Dank and ferny although there were no ferns or conifers. I had high outfit satisfaction. I was buoyant enough on my 60th birthday for the Prada flower power t-shirt (I didn’t get the matching shorts from the Prada Factory shop in Montevarchi, Italy – regret. I could carry them off now, in my 60s. What an ensemble that would have been for the gorge!). Merle had mentioned suitable hiking wear but I had taken no notice. She had a rucksack. But it was just a muddy path, although very gorge-like with rock veering above. There was a little chapel with many icons. Val would have said it was a Chapel of Love, as, so he claims, Barbara Cartland proclaimed of many chapels that she saw with a particularly sincere and moving upward purr in her voice. But I wonder, in retrospect, whether it wasn’t a Last Chance to Be Spared in the Gorge Chapel. Further on we met a Polish couple from Harlesden. We wondered, out of earshot, whether he was Roma. Then suddenly they weren’t there. There were many interesting plants in the gorge, which at home are choice garden specimens. ‘We must climb down,’ said Merle. The whole tempo of the gorge suddenly changed, as if someone had changed the points on a railway line. Ladders, scree, precarious bridges. On a precipice some Spanish people wanted their photo taken. They were insistent as to angles. I had to stand near the edge and put my brief case/clutch bag by Lancel down. ‘Throw off that bag if you stumble,’ Merle commanded, thinking now of danger. ‘Save yourself, not the bag.’ As if…  a violent final push and we were at the bottom of the gorge.  It was like a river bed. But how to get out again? The path was not clear. To go back the way we had come would have been tedious, if we could find even that way. A cleft between boulders possibly had been trodden before, offered hope. To get to it an especially smooth rock slope had to be conquered, unlikely to be fatal, but tricky. With my Designer bag by Lancel (2nd hand from Vestiaire Collective), I was limited to one free hand so the only choice was to take a running leap. My new Zara slacks in honey beige made full contact but by a miracle weren’t marked. Paul Smith’s bootees slid and yapped with their own life. Only by my fingers, such as were not employed in keeping the bag by Lancel clear, did I cling on and without quite knowing how reach the top more or less horizontal. Then it was Merle’s turn. What a drama! It was more that we might not get out rather than die. On we forged, the clambering pathway continuing mercifully until a sign in Greek pointing the other way. But hope and excitement were mounting. How utterly thrilling to be at the bottom of a gorge without warning, in Crete, in an outfit, with a Designer bag, on my 60th birthday.

We got out and went to a particularly good Cretan village picked out by Merle. It was styled as tumbledown. In the cemetery Hitler had apparently been buried. Growing in the wall was a Marvel of Peru, as grown this year by the Gay Mother. Back at the Cretan village house we had a rabbit dinner by Angus Willis, outdoors with a big gale getting up and Miss Miracle, the daughter of Fern and niece of Angus, getting more than usually stained at the table. The last throws of summer and my birthday. It was a perfect day.

Cloudless Brahms – one of Shoreditch’s Leading Flower Arrangers

The Cretan Birthday Gorge: Very Gorge-Like

The Gorge Chapel of Love

My Bag by Lancel in the Gorge

Fern, Merle and Me, Adrian Edge, in Prada Flower Power, in the Gorge

The Village of Arani, Styled

HItler’s Grave at Last? Buried in the Cemetery at Arani

A Marvel of Peru Growing Wild at Arani

Friday 29th September 2017

Pink’s been and gone – or has it? Pink looked huge in the Spring.  Couldn’t be missed. Rack upon rack at Zara and elsewhere. But I didn’t catch it. The Summer flew away and with it pink. I didn’t even signal to dear readers the necessity for pink.

The horror of baggy and sacky still looms for the autumn though. The high houses are trying to push it. Let’s pray and pray the High Street doesn’t follow. How could they? The spray-on slacks and jackette look is the most flattering of my lifetime. Slim, slim, pared down and slim – we’ve seen it off once before, the threat of baggy. Prada is beyond belief. Gucci is loud blankets held on with belts. Barely even clothes. I went to Dover Street Market, now not in Dover Street. Completely mystifying. Grey, navy or black. Awful textures, cheap-looking. The idea is baggy trousers to just below the knee, giving the effect of a skirt, from which emerge starving stick legs ending in big boots. A tragic sack of a jumper hanging from emaciated shoulders. It’s a depression look for self-loathers and non-eaters.

Spring Pink Which I Missed at Zara

More Missed Spring Pink at Zara

But Autumn Sees Dirty Plum – Liberty

Even a PInk Shoe at Liberty

Gucci Horror

Prada Sitting Down – Hiking Outfit

More Prada Nightmare

Prada – What Can They be Thinking of ?

Prada – I Don’t Think So

Wooly Plum for Autumn – Liberty

Someone Actually Wearing Tom Ford in Albemarle Street Pret

Friday 15th September 2017

Nobody has ever left Normandy before. But Moira McMatron left Normandy although not until she’d sung her song about Miss Pineapple, charming, innocent and being worked off the back axle by her mother to lure paying men. Moira twirled her imaginary parasol and was a perfect picture. Then she left Normandy. Her sister’s back was broken at Jerez. She had to fly out.

The Laird and Lairdess also left but they were scheduled. Moira McMatron was put in the back of the Laird’s Toureng for transport to England, whence she would connect by air for Jerez. Through the back window she beamed and waved, still the perfect picture. Prior to departure, the Laird asked what is the difference between a warranty and a guarantee –  the answer is none. Before even that, at the day’s opening, he announced that he had bulimia and amnesia, which worked out well, because he ate then forgot to throw up, although it is questionable whether in that case he had either, because most people forget to throw up after eating.  The Lairdess was confined to her room without fail in the mornings until, at 11, she emerged completely finished and assumed a lounger. On the other hand, the Laird was underway much earlier; he said, Why does all left-wing food stick to the roof of the mouth, such as lettuce and peanut butter? In Waitrose, he’d asked for the Left-Wing Food section.

But they left Normandy. The Lairdess’s prosecco stock had been replenished in the glove compartment for the journey. Matt Driver was still marked as  ‘Matey Matt’, though, by the reduced party of me, Adrian Edge, Beamish O’Halloran and Laura Malcolm herself, of course. So ‘Matey Matt’ decided to age his chateau fragment by daubing it in cow pat and milk but Beamish took little notice. In the afternoon we found that a nearby supposedly whole chateau was open and couldn’t resist. But a country house visit in France is nothing compared to what it would be in England. This one had nothing in it. It was a modest family home. We were shown one medieval nook in a bedroom. ‘Et le salon?’ Laura snapped at the hapless girl-guide, as we were bundled off the premises and into the cider-selling department. Like yappy dogs, Laura and I jumped up in protest at what might have been the salon windows, to get a glimpse.  Ikea within, by the looks.

Later Laura’s cardy caught fire at dinner. ‘That’s my favourite cardy,’ she cried. But it was saved in time and continued in service, although slightly charred.

It was the next day that ‘Matey Matt’ began to dig a grave outside the front gate. Or perhaps the day after. The sun shone as he dug, but it didn’t shine when we went over to Villerville for a restaurant lunch with one who’d been a guest at the fete champetre. That’s how it is in Norman life – one function spawns another. The previous guest now hosts. We had canapes in her parlour. After the restaurant lunch she encouraged us to raid the town allotment. My designer handbag was stuffed with runner beans and we scuttled for the getaway car, just in time. Furious French allotmentiers were rumoured to be looming.

When the sun came out again, ‘Matey Matt’ continued his digging while Laura was in the kitchen. She said,  In London you can have tomatoes in entertaining different colours. There was a bizarre collective mis-memory as we watched Up Down after dinner. Roberts arrived back in Eaton Square, still dripping wet from having gone down in the Titanic. She might have been saved, but Milady was lost and there was only her jewel case to cling on to at all costs. Eventually Roberts had to be put away from the trauma. Rose said she’d been put away. A Seccie was got in to answer the letters of condolence and began stepping out with Captain James. Very wrong. Especially as she lived in Putney. But we were all quite certain it was Mr Bellamy she married in the end. We persisted with this idea even at the extremes of her courtship at the Café Royale and all through Captain James’s proposal of marriage and no sign of Mr Bellamy marrying her instead. We’d only viewed this epi a year or two before as the highlight of a classic Norman evening.

A New Bucket Donated by Me, Adrian Edge, to the Norman Chateau Fragment is Immediately Pressed into Unforeseen Service

‘Matey Matt’s Pot Corner

‘Matey’ Matt Digs a Grave – Right by the Front Gate

Laura’s Cardy Caught Fire: But Saved in the Nick for Further Norman Wear

Friday September 8th 2017

I took the Newhaven-Dieppe crossing this time to make a change: never again. No wifi and filthy food. Spent six hours in Samuel Beckett brown lounge of death. The Official Car was piled high with bagged outfits, some of which have subsequently gone missing. Where is my Paul Costello grey jumper, bought from TX Maxx last autumn for £9.99?  Also the Zara sub-Alexander McQueen black T-shirt with skull and roses print, about the same price? I think left at the Gay Mother’s. I feel like a desperate washwoman at the clothes’ line in a gale, outfits flying away in all directions, no ideah what’s going on re: wardrobe.

I’m going to go back to TX Maxx and see if they’ve got any more merino jumpers by Paul Costello for £9.99. It was a lovely little thing. Such a shape. But had lost its efficacy, gawn fuzzy, by March, if the truth be told.

Wools are such a trial.

The weather forecast for Normandy was dubious but a fete champetre was achieved regardless. But I never thought I’d be close to the Throne. All the white European British of the neighbourhood plus one American and one actual French who had to leave for New York, had been summoned. The table stretched as far as the eye could see and groaned with the famous pate de Usk, self-made by the Laird, an imperial salmon and all the tarts and elegances that grace the summer outdoor luncheon table at summer’s height in France.  Monet achieved the same at Giverny. It was not on this occasion that Laura Malcolm’s cardy caught fire, her favourite cardy. Beamish O’Halloran of the Mail gained 65 years at luncheon but said it would cost him dear. ‘I’ll be paying 40% taxes,’ he cried. Two other men at the table were considerably older than 65; one had purple hair and the other is living in an old factory heaped around with disused London buses. ‘Are you well off?’ Beamish said to one of them, causing a sensation. Beamish often causes a sensation. Was it a woman Sky TV presenter who often said, allegedly, stepping off the set, to any nearby cameraman, ‘Take a shower and report to my dressing room in ten minutes?’ She only wanted a little donation to her favourite charity when this story appeared in the Mail, or one like it. Such a nice lady, completely enthralled by Beamish, of course.

But can you believe who was at the lunch otherwise? Introduced by the man with purple hair? Yes! Close to the Throne. The sister of one who has fitted the Middletons!  The Gay Mother’s got a cardy by the sister, from when Cousin Barley worked there and we gained the sample sale, Aunt Lavinia and I. And also saw, while at the sample sale, the mega purring perfectly honed and very respectable German Euro-Gay who was the business head of the sister’s couture house and known to Joshua Baring. I could see he sensed danger and took on a very German look of imminent world war when I mentioned the name of Joshua Baring. Why? Anyway the Euro was dressed for duck-shooting, although in Upper Berkeley Street.

And that’s just the half of it. I gushed the story to the sister of the Gay Mother’s cardy and how one of its buttons fell off in the drawing room and we almost couldn’t find it which would have been disastrous because it was faceted jet. Otherwise it wasn’t necessary to speak to her, just to gaze. It never is necessary to speak to a connection. The connection is all. She throbbed with Royalty and the core of English life.

Then there was her husband. Blue-eyed, almost blond, weather-beaten, posh, plainly given to manly pursuits out of doors. ‘What do you do?’ I purred. ‘I’m a conservation builder,’ he said. Utter heaven. My favourite thing, light-touch conservation building work. I was fully engaged. Lime-plastering, reclamation yards, tongue-and-groove…. He knew a lime-plasterer in the Far West. I was sure they must exist. Such a thrilling confirmation. ‘What are you doing at the moment?’ I inquired. ‘We’re working at Windsor… must be finished before she comes back…’ ‘Who?’ ‘The Queen.’ I was on the floor. He was mending some steps for the Queen, in her private garden at Windsor.

I’m not surprised she chose him.

So double throne in one day and looks.

The Samuel Beckett Lounge of Death, Newhaven – Dieppe Ferry. Never Again

Tuesday 5th September 2017

Harry Rollo gave a children’s performance at the London Bowl in London. He’s never deployed children before, particularly en masse. They stretched as far as the eye could see. I had high outfit satisfaction although in an old Prada factory shop white summer short-sleeved and Zara spray-ons in black. But nobody knew I was there. Not even Reggie Cresswell, who knows everything, so Harry says. It didn’t help that I couldn’t do backers nor the pre- in the Prince Gloom Room nor the interval in the Prince Gloom Room – owing to pressure of engagements. If it goes on like this, I’ll disappear altogether. On the other hand, rarity can be successful, but you don’t want to push it too far.

The children performed a fertility rite with Harry, under strict supervision of course and it was art. Some of them had the most incredibly challenging banging to do on a high platform in full view of everybody. It was vital that they wacked at the right moment. Harry was incredibly caring and they felt they could manage their tremendous roles. Then there was a perf of Harry’s own devising (the fertility rite was by another), about the stars and how the world started and what it was like in the early days – just so pure, floaty but rigorous. Princess Irina, Prince Dmitri’s sister, said she preferred it to the fertility rite. She’d devoted the day to watching Rupaul’s Drag Race Season 9 on Netflix, having never heard of Rupaul’s Drag Race at all until the day before.

I couldn’t even go to the hotel for the eats afterwards. I had to cavort directly to the remote Marches for Anneli Dumbarton-Nevil’s Sixtieth Birthday the next day. She is Robert Nevil’s sister. I changed into the Topman Limited Edition Queen Mother Powder Blue suitlette on arrival. As you know, (and what could be more topical with this new film out, God’s Own Country, about farming) farms are not especially tidy. In Robert Nevil’s mother’s day, cats swirled in the sink, and Morgan la Fay, the femme de menage, had never been known to penetrate beyond the kitchen whose floor she washed miserably only for it to be instantly churned with a 1st World War of gumboots and labradors. No wonder she died before her time.

But on the occasion of Anneli Dumbarton-Nevil’s Sixtieth Birthday the first thing you saw was a horse-box converted into a luxury toilet-block and then a massive marquee flung up on the lawn. It was to be a seated luncheon. I had no idea. The equestrian glamour element, brought in by Anneli, had prevailed although the raw drive of the farm persists, of course. Respectable relations had been summoned from Budleigh, with good braying voices, and the 104-year-old mother-in-law remained in her place for 8 hours. She said the first thing they taught her at school (this would have been in 1919) was how to knit. She’s remained a champion knitswoman ever since. Still knitting today but only small projects in case, as she says, she doesn’t live to complete them. Her grasp of the outlying villages of Birmingham is complete as well as which of her relations are not on speakers. They all speak to her.  She does not crave death but will take it when it comes. As she said last year, when it seemed there was nobody to look after her while Anneli and Dale were on holiday: ‘If I fall, I fall. Maybe nobody’ll come for me and that’ll be it.’

Anneli’s school friends were all at one table. Once they had each had their own pony. Anneli herself went to school on her pony. They may not have their own ponies now, but there was a distinct equestrian roar of hooves in the air, a sense of rears being whacked as mounted women took to the field in hot pursuit. Robert Nevil made an impertinent speech. He described the Clubhouse at the nearby airfield as a wife-swapping opportunity. He said that Anneli, aged 6 or so, had driven her pony right into the path of the cine camera that was supposed to be filming him and made horrid faces.  But it did no good, possibly merely provoked the horsewomen to drive their animals on even harder. Even, I, Adrian Edge, was not spared.  My tiny powder-blue suitlette, straining at the thighs, so commonplace in London – well, it had to be conquered. Later another horsewoman emerged, a key player in Anneli’s stable. She was up for knocking back until late into the evening. Her man was securely strapped to her side; he’d been living undiscovered in her street for years apparently and appeared to be reeling still from the thrilling shock of her discovery.

The other guests were neighbouring farmers and the tenant farmers, in the distinct Sunday best of the farmer, outfits gained from those country outfitters only found in country towns and unwillingly worn most intermittently. Their faces were red to begin with from their lusty farming and animal spirits transmitted from the animals and soon were even redder as Anneli administered the fizz. The statement pearls of the farmer’s wife spoke of a good tax-free easement to an electricity company, a sudden squirt of thousands. The tenant farmers were bulging with money, a father and two splendid sons; you could see it when they stood up and advanced gleaming on the buffet with frank, manly strides.

In the end, only the Budleigh cousins were upright, although growing less respectable by the minute, and ready for a second assault on the buffet. Returning the next day to London, the Official Car with Zenon driving lights was several times to be seen lurching to a sudden halt in gateways and lay-bys for the emergency emergence of Robert Nevil.

Sunday 3rd September 2017

Valèry and Conrad gave a summer luncheon on a Saturday. In the carriage I could have died, but somehow revived and was poised. This often happens. When feeling at one’s worst pre, the event itself passes well. It must be that one can sink no lower. When buoyant before, one’s in for a crash. Lord Arrowby said we had almost married. Well, I never. He was a vision of the Sea Seas in prints. The young man who tries to house the needy, is a Labour supporter and has many followers on Twitter cared for me. I actually had conversation. I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. I long for union and compromise, mainly so that I can carry on as a Poor Little Rich Gay without feeling so awful about those less fort.. But also so that business and wealth creation can thrive which must be a good thing. Not too many taxes, please. I wasn’t mown down in fury. The youthful Labour supporter couldn’t have been more solicitous. I think he’s seen the tragic side which you do see when you try to help the desperate. I went back in a railway carriage with Reggie who’s recently completed a ceramic. There’s tremendous excitement throughout the world. I don’t think he had any gossip.

Then Miss Mina staged an event in the Marylebone Parish Church. Sebastian Archer was present with Robert Nevil. La Vie en Rose was sung as well as poetry given in Bengali and Indian chanting, Israeli singing and all the world suspended in a kind of trance and just allowed to be without any fussing. Levitation was a possibility possibly; you could have lifted off if properly cleansed of preoccupations and simply subsumed. Miss Mina had some shapes in different colours that constantly pulsed and translated themselves into other shapes on a screen before the altar. It was quite an event, full of absence. Her next project is plane trees. Afterwards we pounded to the fish restaurant in Marylebone High Street, passing The Orrery for which the poor Multis once had a craze. Possibly we’ve sunk down a little to a chain fish restaurant. The Multis would certainly see it like that. But as a restaurant for older people dining after Indian singing in Marylebone Parish Church (the Vicar made a caring speech) it was enough.

After that it was the Mall Galleries for an opening. The Minister was present, as well as the Head of Phoenix Park, Dublin, which once was a Royal Park. The exhib was memorabilia, photographs, paintings etc to do with Hyde Park and Phoenix Park as a matching former Royal Park. Royston made a brilliant speech. He said the Minister had been born in a garden centre. There was tremendous hilarity because it was actually a proper nursery. Lloyd was on holiday, Royston said, so they had to put up with him, the only non-holidaying Royal Parks Trustee left. I was at sea to begin with at the function, knowing nobody, and Royston taken up with all the greatnesses from Dublin and so on, not to mention the Minister. But after the speech, I got in with the Minister’s minder, who was fashionably dressed for a civil servant. He comes from New Zealand and minds the Minister, quite young. The Minister was about 12 years old himself and had opposed Gay Marriage. No idea what he was the Minister of… Arts and Culture, perhaps.  But you could speak to him and I did. The nursery he was born in was at Corsham Court. I said, ‘We’ve always had family at Bath, until now.’ At least as a Tory, he might have understood. ‘The Minister will be dining,’ everybody was saying. There was much scurrying about and a sense of cars coming to the door, although none did. I thought the Minister had absconded. Maybe the minder had forgotten to mention that he was dining. But in fact he did dine, so Royston told me later, and it was riveting. Because the Minister had been bidden to dine with Mrs May herself who is a very retiring woman not given to dining.

Finally Royston and I went to Hyde Hall  for the Plant Fair. Hyde Hall is the RHS garden in Essex. It was a mass event. We had to park 1000 metres from the entrance at least. Everybody there was a uniform type. Honey-blonde hair not as nature intended, retired, white, middle class, monied but Sky TV, not BBC2, Leavers, I should think, embattled against new ideas or ideas of any kind most likely. Never seen anything like it. Such a uniformity of attendees. Royston was the only black person of course. We caused a sensation in the flower arranging tent by barging the queue – or some snappy lady said we’d barged the queue. We managed to give the impression that a queue was something we’ve never heard of, coming from London. There was incredible hiss and hatred. Then Royston told a nurseryman his phlox were all the same. But that went better because the nurseryman was quite up to it, especially with a black person and didn’t have that wretched craven, sour suspicion of everything that plagues some quarters of our society, I’m afraid.

We lunched in a gale and the server admired my jackette, part of the Scottish trousseau bought for the 1st Scottish visit last year, from Zara. Then we went round the garden, trying work out what was wrong with it. Somehow no soul, bitty and restless. It isn’t just the dismal nothing house that must be ‘Hyde Hall’. Also too much. Great borders have been established recently on the outskirts of the garden. This is wrong. You don’t want to give away your secrets straight away. The viewer is exhausted before they’ve even begun. But these institutions like the RHS are always having to dream up something new. The best bit was the New Zealand garden. It really had a distinct character whereas the rest of it was perfectly nice but one part not different enough from another.

Best in Show: Hyde Hall Plant Fayre Flower Arranging Competish: Not Our World

Friday 18th August 2018

Hurled almost directly from the Royal Academy Private Breakfast to the Far West to gather for the Wedding. The Gay Mother took her cardy to Tescos for pre-wedding shopping and donned it for the cold aisle. Many were doing the same. Back-up outfits, bags and bags of suits and dress coats, acres of powder blue, but sadly no diamonds… all to be transported back from the Far West to Gloucs where the great dynastic union between the daughter of Frankie-Doreen and Giles and my cousin was to take place. In the end I wore my Topman dress coat for the pre-luncheon at the Relais et Chateaux hotel in the Cotswolds, changing later into my Topman power-blue mini-suit with the Paul Smith vole bootees for the reception. ‘Everything of the very best,’ the Gay Mother said as the Wedding Service closed – the music, the private singing, the absolute quality. The Church setting – but God was declared on the service sheet  to be the mystery of the universe rather than actual God although the Vicar was pushing in a different direction quite hard.  Frankie-Doreen was one of the greatest mother-of-the-brides that ever lived. Not in tangerine with cafe-au-lait lace overlay as Val specifies for the role, but pewter with rose flush and cream trim, the coat shorter than the dress and an incredible front-bow, statement pearls and a hattinator. Then there was tea on the lawn with champagne or tea and cake brought by the guests. Laura Malcolm emerged in a floral print, wide straw hat and statement pearls, very fitted and shapely,  the boiled-down essence of the wedding guest, We were rustic and natural and done-up-to the-nines, a dream of pastoral, fairy children playing by the lake in the platonic ideal of little girls’ bridesmaids’ dresses.

Frankie-Doreen had done all the flowers – everywhere you looked, flowers, lacy and fine, cow parsley, no hint of fat florist horror. What a dream of rural simplicity, such art, hand-made, the floral wedding of Shakespeare’s time! But our family are riven. Too many deaths, starting with the unexplained suicide of the unknown Gay Grandfather in 1922, despite his excellent connections with grocery at the highest level. And then other misfortunes followed, some arising from the original trauma and some disasters occurring randomly. So the bridal pair must rise phoenix-like from the ashes. I’m sure they will. All bridal pairs are in the same boat, more or less, beginning again, as those who are passing already into the twilight years look on and think they know best.

Back in London via Hestercombe, back into outfits but a shadow of the wedding outfits. The National Trust have gone gay and in Hackney at Sutton House a new gender-neutral toilet marks 50 years since Gays were semi de-crim . They mean well but really. Dainty Lady TV were bidden to Sutton House and taken round by its alternative gay curators. They’ve encouraged angry black people to scrawl on the walls and an artist described as ‘non-binary’ to produce de-faced versions of well-known paintings. ‘Mr and Mrs Andrews’ with an Ikea catalogue was quite funny. The national policy is to out past owners of National Trust properties, even ladies only remotely connected with Lesbianism, and to make volunteers in the properties wear rainbow ribbons. At Felbrigg Hall there was resistance and they had to be let off. I don’t suppose they were anti-gay but embarrassed. Who wants to be thinking about sex while trying to show antiques?

The National Trust Summer Drive for LGBT – maybe it would have been better if they hadn’t bothered. It’s just not for them.

Rather a relief to arrive at Buckingham Palace for the Royal Gifts, which is this year’s special exhibition for the greatly treasured summer opening of this world-class interior. How I love that Blue Drawing Room which is actually cafe au lait and blue. What a scheme! Very few were in for the Press opening. Often I was alone in a drawing room except for a footperson, rather aware that this is the home of a very old person where nothing much has changed for years. That stain on the banquette in the Picture Gallery still there. The Royal Gifts! Two hundred Royal Gifts. Rather shattering. V. few one would really want but it’s the thought that counts. Then a Diana shrine corner of certain pecularity, with a photo of her in her best outfit over – the pink Versace suit for the Buenos Aires Visit. But why did she have her ‘childhood typewriter’ with her always? What is a ‘childhood typewriter’?

Frankie-Doreen and Giles Fecit: The Wedding Cake de Charme, So Pared Down, Recalling a Rustic Wedding of Shakespeare’s Time from the Point of View of Highest London Today

A Royal Gift: From Russia

From the People of the Falkland Islands: A bit Dreary

A Pair of Fish Gurgle Jugs Given by Dartmouth Naval College

HM Not Looking Best Pleased with the Columbian Handbag

Really Gorgeous: Scarf Given by Nelson Mandela

Botswana! Don’t You Love it

Diana’s Best Outfit Ever: the Versace Pink Suit for the Buenos Aires Visit

Diana’s Childhood Typewriter. What is a Childhood Typewriter? Plus Her School Tuck Box, which She Always Kept By