Sunday 18th June 2017

Yesterday Royston King’s shaded private stand for Trooping the Colour saved me from oblivion – although it still might come. The world has been reigned back a little from chaos since Friday although Lord Arrowby texts not reassuringly from our Nation’s heart. On Friday I was rocked also by news from the Far West – our lands and minerals won’t last long in any case once Jeremy gets to hear of them; that’s if our operators don’t ruin everything first. But I had comforting confab with a co-owner on the phone on the way to the Trooping. All the same, the great fist of punishment looms, I feel certain.

At luncheon after Trooping, Royston said people like us, at the inner core, the tiny percentage in the know, spend much time alone, although often at functions. It’s true. I went home alone, absolutely plastered and slept in the boiling heat. Royston produced a old doctor friend as a further plus one for Trooping who confided in me but not Royston that he wished to treat us to lunch. Rather annoying then, as we were staggering along in full outfits in the blazing heat with the luncheon venue undecided that I heard the doctor mention Claridges and Royston said, ‘Oh no, you pay £100 to fart in there.’ So we ended up in a Mayfair gastro pub – very nice. Madonna used to go there when it belonged to Guy Ritchie. Apparently the doctor doesn’t eat anything that might cause a heart attack. He suggested a glass of champagne then ordered a bottle of wine, followed by another. So reassuring – doctors.

But back to Scotland. We went to Culzean Castle. I’d never even heard of it although I love Robert Adam, whose work it is. Nor of the staircase inside it which turned out to be as important as the staircase entrance lobby to the Laurentian Library in Florence by Michelangelo. Why has nobody ever mentioned it before? We know Robert Adam was a supreme decorator, an interior designer before such a thing had been heard of. But not as a manager of monumental rhythms and complication.

On the way to Culzean in the van, the Laird said, ‘This is the Electric Brae.’ We didn’t get it at all. You’re meant to get an effect of going uphill while in fact going downhill. It’s one of these freak things. We made the Laird turn round and drive along it again. Laura Malcolm got quite cross which may or may not have led directly to the seagull episode later in the day. I don’t know how, if you think you’re going uphill, you’re supposed to know that in fact you’re going downhill. I think I’d have to practice the Electric Brae many times to have any hope of grasping it.

Culzean was glorious but most of all the staircase with its rhythms and illusions within an oval. The Scottish National Trust do everything slightly dingy which I liked. Apparently they have no money, unlike the English National Trust. Damp in one of the bedrooms. But they’re harbouring this earth-shattering staircase. A stairs, you ought to know by now, even a simple flight in an ordinary terraced house, is about the most appalling challenge an architect has to face. Bruce MacBain taught me that. So a quadruple-height, multi-directional oval stairs at the core of a great mansion doesn’t bear thinking about. Robert Adam turns out to have been batting in the team with Michelangelo as far as stair-case design is concerned.

In the café after the visit, there was a sudden squawking. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Matt Driver was saying. ‘I fancied a scone with my coffee,’ Laura protested. ‘But that was someone else’s…’ ‘I don’t care. They’ve gone.’ Laura had swooped, like a seagull, and seized the vacant scone fragment before it was too late.

This was before the Election result, of course. In future we’ll have to get much better at acquiring food in this manner.

We did manage to self-buy our lunch in Culzean Castle cafe before being taken back in the van for a rest period in the Premier Inn. In the evening, the Lairdess contrived to get the Laird out of the restaurant just as we were sitting down. ‘I’ve left my phone in the van,’ she said. When he came back we were all wearing masks of himself. The game had nearly been given away by some customers exiting the restaurant who’d said to the Laird as he was coming back in, ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ Thus we celebrated his forthcoming 60th birthday in another way. It was strange how the masks all looked different according to wearer although they were all identical in fact. A bit like the Electric Brae.

You get the masks on Amazon. You have to send in a photo of your loved one.

Culzean: the Staircase: What Directions

Culzean: One of the Great Staircases

Culzean: the Staircase Space

Culzean: a Delicious Ceiling

Friday 16th June 2017

Nobody feels they can carry on. This fire. No government. Protesters storming the Town Hall. Majesty visited this morning, only just in time. This afternoon it would have been impossible. I hope she won’t be attacked over her visit. There she was – the same as always. She does and says little. The poor man as she was leaving – calling out, ‘What about the children? Queen, Queen, I want to see you.’ She thought he meant, ‘Get a view’ so she paused before getting into her car. Diana would have rushed over and hugged him.

How could Mrs May have got it so wrong? After all that’s happened? To visit and not speak to the victims? I’m beginning to wonder whether Jeremy isn’t the only hope after all.

I was there yesterday. The tower is near my old home. I happened upon The Church of All Saint’s Notting Hill, some way away, further back up the hill in the £££££££s part of the Borough. They were taking donations. So I dropped off  the contributions of Genevieve Suzy, Robert Nevil and myself. Only just in time. They’d got too much. My friend who has a shop in Portobello Road told me later that one of the Vesteys was in that church, feeling guilty about her millions from Fray Bentos boil-in-the-tin steak pies. I got back in the Official Car and rounded the corner: the blackened hulk slammed into view, although nearly a mile away, a terrible accusing presence – and there it will remain for many months. Often I used to wonder, when I lived in that neighbourhood, peering out from my poor little rich gay life, what went on in those tower blocks, for Grenfell is not the only one.  Utterly alien. You can see them from many of the desirable properties. Your afternoon walk could take in one or two easily.

Saturday 10th June 2017

…but for how much longer? I’m keeping that place on the sofa for Jeremy still. He could be here in only a few months. I’ll be re-housed.

She is ghastly and it’s all her fault. She had a 20-point lead. What happened to that?

Has the country really turned to the brink of Socialism in seven weeks?

I’ve always said it can’t go on: too many people with not enough to live on while the rich get richer. A backlash is inevitable. They’ll be coming after capital. There will be land taxes. But they’ll damage enterprise and wealth creation.

What’s to be done?

Thursday 8th June 2017

Fateful day – possibly my last in the life I have known. Funny because in Scotland we toured Statelies – Dumfries House was the first – revelling in the glory of the old ways. But Matt Driver wants total inheritance tax. It was much discussed.  I had to explain that the Gay Mother keeps her nearby post office going in the Far West, buying a cauliflower or a lemon cake with inherited money.

My whole life has been inheritance, now I think about it and its shape becomes clearer as it draws to its twilight years. Otherwise, it would have been entirely different and possibly nothing.

I digress: I had to have check-in luggage because of all the tartan I acquired for the Scottish visit – two tartan jackets, a tartan frock coat and tartan trousers. We arrived at the Premier Inn Ayr. A middle-aged couple were leaving for an Abba Fancy Dress party. The Laird distributed printed cards explaining our next rendezvous. At 6.45 the van would leave for Troon. It did. Moira MacMatron, Laura Malcolm and the Lairdess, at this stage, were militantly occupying the back seat as women only. In Troon they wandered off piste, taking photos of Matt Driver in front of a branch of the TSB bank. He is currently re-shaping the brand of TSB in UK and throughout the world. If only the young woman locking up the Troon branch in Troon’s flat bare streets so far from anywhere had known… The Laird swept up with the van to where they were dawdling and put them in. Even so we were the last at MacCallum’s excellent Oyster Bar in Troon harbour. The Scots are in bed by 10. My outfit stood out a little less than it had done during the passiagata at Troon. Matt Driver said, ‘I don’t think they’ve seen Zara before.’

The fish dinner was excellent. We could have been in London it was so artisanal. The Lairdess wanted more bread and they said they’d have to make it, it would take 20 minutes. She wasn’t best pleased.

The next day I wore a rain outfit but it didn’t rain. Dumfries House was glorious – very simple and cosy. It was built by Robert Adam but not in his style as we know it. It is more of a 17th century type of house, a series of box-like rooms with windows on one side, one leading on to the next. The furniture is worth more than the house. It’s actual Chippendale, made by him. There are only 600 pieces he made himself in existence and Dumfries House has got a good chunk of them. One chair is worth £1 million. I was struck that Chippendale often seems to hark back to the late 17th century or forward to the Victorian period, with his curves and elaboration.  Except that some of the furniture is rococo. Granny always preferred Sheraton or Hepplewhite for their simplicity. We heard much about Lady Eileen on the tour. She was the last of the Butes to live in the house until her death in 1993, and outstanding.  ‘Paint it battleship grey,’ she decreed and the exquisite decoration in the Pewter Corridor was obliterated. Her poker night was Thursday and she smoked 80 a day. She achieved great wreckage plus ring marks on the furniture, still there, and dogs on the best Chippendale sofa.

We lunched at Brig o’Doon House in the Robert Burns National Memorial Park. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen that water jug before,’ the Lairdess said. ‘That’s because we’ve got one at home identical in daily use,’ the Laird said. The Robert Burns National Memorial Park was very extraordinary – very nationalistic. Laura Malcolm liked the museum, but I was shattered.  Returning in the van, the women-only back seat began to lose its solidarity. ‘Oh, I can’t get in there,’ the Lairdess said as if she’d never heard anything so preposterous. Being stationed further forward possibly made it easier for her to lob intimate enquiries at the Laird re: his former girlfriends if any, as he drove the van.

Back at the Premier Inn, Ayr Racecourse, there was but a short time before departure (more departure cards issued) for Enterkine House Country House Hotel for a dinner in a private room filled with antiques to celebrate the Laird’s forthcoming birthday. Incredible elegance and grandeur: a vast dining table groaning with antiques, and the seven of us mere specks amidst all the ware: which is how it should be. There was a rumour that the Laird had been there before with a previous wife or some mysterious molecular scientist, who aged 19, and all of 34 years ago, when he was 26, had ragingly pursued the Laird and, as far as could be discerned, never even got a ride in the Triumph Spitfire, let alone prosecco in the glove box as accorded to a true love. But the Lairdess was soothed by the antiques and not inclined to seize one of the firearms on the walls for an armed pursuit of any traces of former women.

Back in the van, the all-women back seat suddenly was revived and they gave a tremendous airing to the short-comings of the warm white wine waitress.

The Premier Inn, Ayr Racecourse

Abba Fans in Car Park of Premier Inn Ayr Racecourse

My Outfit for Troon Passiagata: No Socks Victim

Troon: the Passiagata

Our Van was Marked in Troon

Dumfries House: a Charming, Simple Villa with its Little Friends it’s Spawned

Dumfries House: So Manageable and Simple

Dumfries House: the Blue Drawing Room. Furn by Chippendale. This is the Sofa Lady Eileen Used for Dogs

Chippendale Chair Worth £1m. To Me it’s Quite Victorian in Feel. Legs v. Splayed

Chippendale Rococo

The Family Parlour at Dumfries House

The Family Parlour: Here Lady Eileen Played Poker

This is the Corridor Lady Eileen had Painted Battleship Grey

Bed by Chippendale: Val would Love the Hard Upholstery

This is the Actual Brig o’Doon

A Wedding was Taking Place in Brig o’Doon in the Robert Burns National Memorial Park. A Male Guest group – but Wrong Nationality?

Friday 2nd June 2017

By this time next week I could be over. I’ve always said that the poor would rise up and now they will. I’ve tinkered with the garden this afternoon. But there’s little point if the Bolsheviks are due in ten days time.  I wonder where Corbyn will re-house me.

So these are the last days. Robert Nevil and I took ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ with Imelda. Decor’s come on since the 50s, at least. I like this play. To me, it’s perfectly normal – or just a teeny bit exaggerated – that they carry on like that. It’s not depressing. They’re fighting against the void like the rest of us. Afterwards Robert Nevil tried on a bit of George and Martha work in the street as we were waiting for our cars. But he won’t destroy me.

I fitted in the Hockney Show at the Tate. Luckily I knew most of the work so was not detained too long. But the impact of it massed together – the central room with the large canvasses – Celia Imrie and Ossie at Home, Henry on the Sofa, His Mother and Father, the Art Collector Lady and Husband. It was like the Raphael Stanze in the Vatican or the Arena Chapel. So monumental yet so light. Years ago I wondered about the flat acrylic quality of Hockney’s work from that era but now I see it has that modernity while the modelling of the faces is exquisite and classical.

I was bidden to Highclere on account of Dainty Lady TV. Genevieve Suzy was to have accompanied me but couldn’t because, at the after-party for the confirmation of the daughter of the Deputy Editor of the Mail on Sunday, somebody stabbed her foot with a stiletto. I had private audience with the Countess in the Downton Abbey library. Highclere is a much nicer house than appears. Not heavy and Victorian but light and carved and fanciful. There’s a delightful drawing room in the Ritz rococo style and very good tooled leather covering from the 16th century in what they call the Saloon which is really the hall. Once the Countess realised she was talking to a fellow decor enthusiast (I didn’t quite manage to work in that landed affairs are a little bit my province too – or were) she showed me the bedrooms. She’s got a fantastic silvery pink from the Paint Library in one of them. We also looked at the shutters she’s had restored but she left the scuff marks on the skirting.

On the way back, Robert Nevil suggested that I look at the Stanley Spencer chapel at Burghclere. So I did. Very good but the religious aspect is troubling. Funny how Michelangelo is not damaged by being religious but in a later painter it seems eccentric and limiting. Why is this?

Then there was a Wyndham Lewis tour: we saw the railings in Soho Square where he got hung up by his trouser turn-ups. It was some row about a lady. Quite an attractive figure but a bit grim. He liked to stir up trouble. Tremendous feuds and a phase of loving Hitler, later obliterated. Fearsome writings nobody but the wildest fan can read. Don’t really know what Vorticism is, do you? Everything swirling round with its own energy. Like a lot of things, it only lasted about ten minutes and very little work was produced but people are still taking about it 100 years later. He did that great pic of T.S. Eliot and the other one of Edita Sitwelliana. But they aren’t Vorti.  We were shown his war paintings privately in the stacks at the Imperial War Museum. Odd. I noticed how many old generals are stored there, glinting out side ways from their slots. An exclusive buffet was laid out in the private corridor of the museum and we consumed in the Orpen Room amidst his war paintings which some would kill to see.

Wyndham Lewis: his Idea of 1st World War. What do you Think?

A General Stowed Away at the Imperial War Museum

The Private Corridor at the Imperial War Museum

Stanley Spencer: Oddball

Highclere: More fun that Might Appear

Highclere: the Saloon: The Countess Pointed out Some Marks on the Upholstery Here Which she is Rising Above 

Thursday 25th May 2017

I took 42nd Street and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I was at the Hockney Retrospective at the Tate and the Queer Art Exhib (joint ticket). Down at the Gay Mother’s we gave and took a lunch. I vac-ed and weeded. I schemed to get her to replace the pittosporum with a cypress such as marks a demesne in Tuscany – ‘Well, this isn’t Tuscany,’ the Gay Mother said. Otherwise she remarked upon The Archers: ‘Matt Crawford came back…. so why shouldn’t Rob Titchner come back… and his horrible mother.’

Val took sixty years at the Chiswick Cafe Rouge. It was a very restrained party of just two Oxford sewing and fabric ladies, plus me, Adrian Edge. Wayne Sleep came and sat nearby. It turned out he’s bought Nancy Mitford’s first married home, Rose Cottage, which is right next door. There was a flicker of recognition from that time Bruce McBain brought him round to see my stone worktops with a view to him having similar. I thought of hurling at him, but it was better that he hovered on the fringes, lending a glow. Nothing could detract from Val, who’d been watching TV. The film had simply everything: she was besieged by the Bolsheviks, stampeded by Red Indians, tied to a railway line and hung out of an upper window of the Empire State building. ‘I thought it must be “The Perils of Pauline” ‘, Val said. But it wasn’t. Pauline was tied to a railway line in sepia, of course, while frantic piano music played, and a sign flickered on the screen explaining her dire plight. Also of note were the hymns at a recent funeral of a rellie at Arnos Grove. ‘Might as well have been by Neil Diamond,’ Val said. Terrible, drifty mu, no tune, ghastly long-winded, crippled fervour of the words.

There was lunch before 42nd Street at Delaunay. Raj had recently undergone an interesting procedure and pretended to squeal at any approach to his chest area. Burna said he shouldn’t tell Rufus to clean his glasses and Rufus said semen gives you acid, just as the waiter was leaning over. He looked as if he’d had a rough night. The matinee audience for 42nd Street astonishing: the entire contents of Colliers Wood surely present. Glittery cardies and middle-aged women on the move in their seats throughout: the numbers! the tap-dancing! Raj said the Busby Berkeley floor work where the girls pulse and scissor as one was a mollusc or something worse. It was all completely thrilling of course. She only had 12 hours in which to become a star – as usual.  Rufus said no sense whatsoever could be made of the show in which she was to be the last minute replacement. Nor was there any hint as to why the whole piece is called 42nd Street. But one mustn’t quibble when you have show girls, tap shoes, hit numbers and stardom.

I’ve also taken a Wyndham Lewis Tour of London with lunch in the Orpen Room at the Imperial War Museum, had private confab in the library at Highclere with Carnarvon’s Countess and another private tour conducted by Bamber at West Horsley Place. ‘You’re the only one that keeps up,’ he said to me as the rest of the party straggled. That was because I was chronically keen to work in my own landed connections. At last we saw a rabbit so I was able to tell the story of Lord Seaton running up his bedroom window on a Sunday morning and shooting rabbits and that led very comfortably to the sash he kept on the hall table, mixed up with the current gloves and scarves, upon which Sir John More had been lowered into the grave at Corunna. Bamber didn’t quite cotton on actually but at last he knew the poem.  He never said, ‘Starter for ten’ or ‘I must hurry you’ but he did say, ‘We’re very short of time… you’ll have to be getting on… really very little time left…’ so presumably he’s permanently locked in the time-frame of an epi of University Challenge.

Wednesday 24th May 2017

The Gay Mother’s party (she bought the tickets but isn’t present) of Aunt Lavinia, poor little Robert Nevil, Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver are at Chelsea as we speak. I’m to join them for the dinner afterwards at Carrafini. I was there on Monday for the Press/Celebrity preview. The massive highlight was Vanesse de la Feltz’s partner’s spray-on jeans. You may remember last year on an ordinary RHS day, we had Evan Davis in an extreme booted jean look. But the partner of Vanesse de la Feltz went further. Also absolutely mega that the move to baggy (oh no! oh no!) is being repelled at the highest level.

This year there are only eight show gardens. Going round at the Press/Celebrity preview with Royston King, who knows everybody, we encountered a knight who runs Westminster. He said he’d been begged to organise a show garden. All the greatnesses in the garden world  – we had private confab with them all – were shuddering. Our greatest height by far, though, occurred beside  the Commonwealth War Graves garden in the artisan gardens section. Sir Timothy Lawrence, Her Majesty’s son-in-law! Yes, we had private audience! Were addressed personally. He was delighted to meet me, Adrian Edge. Royston gently nudged about the Keeper’s House at Greenwich. Sir Lawrence was ashamed to say he’d not been there but now he will. Access will be improved, all being well.

Back to the flowers: my highlight was Daisy Roots in the pavilion. This is the stand of a Hertfordshire nursery. Delightful. And making a huge claim, without appearing to do so: Verbascum are back. They used to be huge 25 years ago. Verbascum Helen Johnson was all the rage, being brown. Then they’d had their day. Now they’re back. New forms have been created, including one called ‘Merlin’ – an incredible dirty mauve and, to replace Helen Johnson who always died, Firedance. But don’t expect them to persist anyway. Treat as annuals. You’ll get light airy sprays early in the season when often there’s a gap to fill.  In addition try Gainsborough (sulpur yellow) and Cotswold Queen (red and yellow). They vary in size. Some get very tall. I’ve got a horrid one flowering at the moment in my garden called Rosetta – a really nasty dirty pink. But a small white one called White Bride is more or less worth having. My plants needed to be bigger. I might try to keep it for next year. The nurserywoman said Don’t let them set seed if you want them to come back.

So, Poor Little Rich Gays, here and throughout the world, grown verbascums to be rare and different.

But the showgardens – only 8 showgardens. Glaring gaps inexpertly filled with a photography exhib. Chris Beardshaw’s Morgan Stanley garden – fearsome block planting in clashing colours, ghastly great slab of a pavilion in orange wood hideously dumped in the middle of it. Maggie’s Garden – dismal grey pit. Wellington College Bursary Garden – as Royston said, is this what it’s come to: public school advertising its egalitarian aspirations? The label said, ‘The concept of breaking down the barriers to public school education lies at the heart of the garden, whilst the synaptic activity governing our thought process is also referenced.’ This last bit hoped to explain the ruinous rusty metal structures plonked over the meadow-planting (do think of something else: we’ve had enough of meadow planting). Also salvia caradonna – which was everywhere – such a dreary plant. Best in Show garden at least had nice stone. But why it is all about Malta? Why have we suddenly got to be exercised about Malta? Nobody goes there. We met the designer. He had on a thick wool three piece suit. Obviously had been planning different weather. He had it on the next day too, for the TV. Must have come up to London with only one outfit. Lovely pool in the this garden. But square stone pillars close together? You couldn’t garden between them. You couldn’t walk on them, let alone lie or sit. So what is it exactly?

Some of the gardens across the top quite nice. A cabbage patch. Sarah Raven – ‘entirely pointless’, a huge garden figure declared. We got quite keen on the Radio 2 texture garden of Jeremy Vine (he had planted one Californian poppy apparently). The designer was present: classic horticulture good-looking. V. craggy face, tiny recessed eyes, blond and bronzed of course, about 25. Immaculate stone slacks, nippy jersey polo shirt in navy. Posh yob manner. Actually from Richmond.

Even so, the garden was embryonic.

I’m very sorry to say, Chelsea is absolutely shattering this year. Shatteringly awful. And thin on the ground.

Verbascum Cotswold Queen: Chelsea’s Most Important Message this Year

Verbascum ‘Merlin’ Fabulous Vile Colour: Vital for Next Year

Radio 2 Texture Garden: Quite Liked But Not These Zig-Zags

Radio 2 Texture Garden: Plain Grey Wall All Right – but don’t Muck About with It

Sarah Raven Effort: ‘Entirely Pointless’ a Greatness said. Also a Mess in Graphs

Best in Show: What do you Think? That’s the Designer in his Heavy Wool Suit: Nice Man 

Commonwealth War Graves Garden: Scene of Meeting and Audience with Sir Timothy Lawrence, the Queen’s Son-in-Law

My Favourite: Floor of Sculpture Park Exhibit

Chris Beardshaw: What are you Thinking of?

Chris Beardshaw: No! No! No!

Maggie’s Garden: Grey Pit

Wellington College Synapse Brain Public School Bursary Garden

Label for Wellington College Garden: Just so You Can see I haven’t Made it Up

Monday 22nd May 2017

Absolutely massive and preview. Chelsea Flower Show 2017. I won’t spoil your enjoyment – of course Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the world will be flocking tomorrow and for the rest of the week.

Vanesse de la Feltz paddling in the pool of the Yorkshire County Garden. The partner of Vanessa de la Feltz – his spray-on jeans. Hugh Bonneville, Anneka, Mary Berry, Lord Linley (as was) in very humble hut in a dank corner. At length I teamed up with Royston King. Only 8 show gardens this year. Mostly new designers. We met the designer of a side-garden, Radio 2 Jeremy Vine Texture Garden. He’d used grey-ed York stone. As for Chris Beardshaw – what can he have been thinking of? Block planting, orange and blue?

Couldn’t make any progress with Royston: he knew every other person. Head of Operations, BBC, Sir Richard, Deputy Leader of Westminster Council, Head of Horticulture Kew, Head of the Garden Museum, Lambeth, Sir Timothy Lawrence…. yes, Sir Timothy Lawrence! He referred to ‘my wife’. He’s President of Commonwealth Graves Commission possibly.

To be that near the Throne.

Vanesse de la Feltz: Partner

Wednesday 17th May 2017

The official car went down to Hastings with Val, imperial, in it. The idea was for Val to sell London, buy in Hastings for less and have capital in hand. In addition, the seaside will bring happiness, especially with capital in hand. So why were all the properties scheduled for viewing the same price more or less as the London residence is intended to fetch?  The first one we looked at was an old nunnery beside a busy road so much at the back of Hastings as to be effectively elsewhere. The drawing room had a dim religious air, the only light coming from a stained glass window of great inferiority high in the wall. Otherwise there were no rooms, only corridors half-heartedly partitioned. The second one was airy with a good entrance lobby – a terraced house in a dreary stringy road but all right inside. ‘Why are you moving?’ Val Lady Bracknell-ed at the owner. ‘You don’t have to answer,’ he added terrifyingly. In any case, Val wasn’t having her house. Too much uphill. Val only walks these days if attended. Finally we saw a dwelling in a twittern, very near Angus Willis’s sacred Tudor House. It’s jammed right up against all the other houses, with only a tiny walkway or twittern between. There’s not a square-inch of the place that doesn’t need renovation but Val’s hell-bent. He totally wouldn’t look at much cheaper houses of the same size in another part of the town. Val will be elevated to a twittern and that’s that.

We were lent Genevieve Suzy’s seaside mansion for the night. It was enchanting to be living someone else’s life. I wasn’t up to battling over to Angus and Fergus’s out of town cottage for a barbie (they retire there at night from the glare and publicity of Hastings)  and all the restaurants were booked. I had a brain-wave.  Hastings, being by the sea, is a fish town. There are fish and chip shops. One I had been to years ago with Angus and Fergus. It seemed to have an arrangement for ‘take-away’ from the back door. Would we? Could we? We did. It was so simple to manage. You carry your wrapped fish and chips home with you. In the mansion, we styled yours into plates and made a dinner in that way. Incredible fun. We felt so new and daring. Val also had his sandwich from Marks and Spencer to finish up. He’d particularly wanted the Copidex and celery. All over her house, Genevieve had stationed chocolate treats, Easter eggs and tins of luxury biscuits. There was no perspective that wasn’t thus adorned. Too late Val discovered that we could have had Sauce Tartare with the fish and chips: there was a jar of mayo, as well as jars of gherkins and capers.

The next day Hastings was threatening to have its May Day celebrations which are horrid. A lot of people cover themselves in green paint. It’s awful. They look so awful. Their skin turns grey. The leaves cut and strewn everywhere wilt.  It’s squalor and decay rather than lovely green Spring as intended. There’s a really creepy giant doll paraded about. Can’t bear it. Once I thought differently but I’ve badly turned against Hastings May Day celebrations.

On the way back we stopped off at Great Dixter and Val bucked up. The joy and energy of that place never fails. A lot out but the main impression was of the ground thickly covered with plants about to burst forth. The real thing, unlike the dreadful throttled greenery dying all over Hastings town for the May Day celebrations.

We Took Fish and Chips back to Genevieve Suzy’s Mansion:Have you Ever had Fish and Chips?

Fish and Chips is Wrapped for Transport: Val had His Carried by Me

Genevieve’s Biscuit Corner

Genevieve’s Hall Easter Egg

Genevieve’s Choc Bunnies

Genevieve’s Cake Corner

Horrid Creepy Hastings May Day Celebrations

Frightful Rubbish: Hastings May Day Carry-On: Look at Those Trainers. Very Traditional, to be Sure

Monday 15th May 2017

Mrs Bone, the last of our old retainers, has died ay 91. She was seven years in the nursing home, always knowing us but often variable as to where exactly she was.

Her funeral followed quite swiftly at the crem, Friday last.

At Christmas we couldn’t visit her as usual because the Gay Mother wasn’t well (same cold as the Queen). We could have gone in February or even March but idleness prevailed or a feeling that she wouldn’t have noticed anyway whether we’d visited or not.

But maybe she did. Maybe she died in agony that her old employer never came. Although the Gay Mother did go in January.

Anyway she never got her Christmas present from me.

The Gay Mother was present at the crem. She went in by taxi because of road works nearby. In the end quite a few attended. It was feared that Mrs Bone’s world had gone on before, but it hadn’t quite. In truth she never courted popularity and was given to bizarre outbursts of hostility even in her prime but her work was excellent. The dining room floorboards under the windows after her attentions with the Mansion wax! She’d been trained in a farmhouse from 14. She did the drawing room on Fridays – you couldn’t believe it was the same room afterwards, so did it purr with new life and luxury.

‘New Every Morning’ was sung at her funeral but really it was a farewell to one who’d gone many years before. Afterwards Mrs Bone’s son, who rose beyond the village, drove the Gay Mother on to her next appointment, in a last gesture of service to the Gentry perhaps.  She’d planned a taxi but Mrs Bone’s son drove her instead.

Mrs Bone’s Christmas Present in the Luggage Room: Never Now to be Received by Her