Thursday 3rd November 2016

Angus Willis kindly hand delivered a tureen I’d bought at Angus Willis Home Store Hastings largely because it did not appear to be on sale. He stayed on to dine in my home with Fergus Strachan and Merle Barr (formerly Head of Children). This was some weeks ago. They said my desk in the back drawing room is too big; I should get another. Merle remarked that here were fewer piles of books and papers in the drawing room than usual. The carefully styled drying racks at the bottom of the stairs were also looked upon darkly. ‘Always washing here,’  Merle barked. A few days before Angus Willis had said there was nowhere to put anything down in my drawing room.

I didn’t like to mention that I spend six hours a day working on the home in various ways. But not many these days understand the antique style with knick-knacks.

I will drag on relentlessly in the never-ending uphill struggle towards decor. Just now I’m on a buying trip – more antiques. Come back later for more. I’ve gone to Cheltenham to look at a stool.

The next day, Joshua Baring suddenly was available at 50 minutes’ notice to see ‘The First Monday in May’ which was only to be seen in one cinema at 11 a.m. on a limited number of days. He’d been betrayed beyond belief by Virgin Trains – their website gave one price for a ticket but wasn’t working. The tele-sales price was a lot more. A fruitless hour on the phone. Not the weight of the Barings nor the Rothschilds could collapse the Virgin Trains Call-Centre.  So he was refusing to board for his country home at Sandringham St Kil.

‘The First Monday in May’ – do you know it? It’s a documentary film about putting on the Annual Fashion show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, for the year in question, ‘China Through the Looking-Glass’.  Fashion is now art, you see, and put on in museums. Well, we didn’t agree with that. Nor with the outfits of the Met Head of Costume Department, who is an English Gay. As Head of Costume Department, you can’t not be in fashion the entire time. I couldn’t think what had happened to his frockage – it was a crippled Prep School look, shrink-washed, skew-wiff, trousers both at half-mast and hitched to the arm-pits, jackettes (well, so great) but kind of square and flappy. Huge slip-on shoes, no socks. He wasn’t able to walk much at all. Then it emerged that Thom Browne is his ‘partner’. Do you know Thom Browne? He is an American fashion designer, madly expensive, who only does men’s school clothes into which he had evidently inserted the Head of Costume to absolutely devastating effect. I’ve seen the wear on sale at Harrods but never on. I had no ideah it was so shattering.

Anna Wintour on the other hand – she was the other main person because Vogue were central to the Show, and she was doing the placement for the Gala dinner on the First Monday in May – which is the only day each year when the Met closes.

‘We need to find someone better to sit next to Harvey Weinstein,’ she said. Later she peered again at the massively complex placement board where all the names were on pieces of paper so they could be moved about. ‘Who are these people?’ she enquired of some who had no place and were pinned to the side of the board. ‘I’m hoping they’ll go away,’ the assistant said. ‘Troublemakers,’ Anna said. She then engaged in decisive re-placement of certain other individuals, who might have been George Clooney or Rhianna herself. All her actions are gracious, particularly her Smart Phone work. She is never crouched.

Actually Anna is a miracle: she is hardly a person. I don’t know how she does it. At times she was beached, as when seen sitting on a banquette (she could just have been a little tired, but there was no way of really knowing for sure), quite alone, in the entrance hall of the Met (just like any member of the public) consulting her phone – which she did a lot. But frocked, frocked beyond belief, embroidered, trimmed and hung with necklaces. Really it’s the same frock – little short sleeves, straight down, very fitted – but never, never simple. She can also just about walk to her car: her heels are spikes. Afterwards you struggle to recall what she said. Because really she barely speaks. ‘It fits,’ she said, when her daughter was trying on her ballgown. ‘It fits.’ That was it, but it sounds such a massive thing that Anna Wintour said it fitted.

Of course she would never lose her temper. That would be giving too much away. ‘What is that?’ she said, of a wall-installation that looked like some kind of digital representation of a fish tank in the new Vogue offices . ‘It makes me ill. Take it away. ‘ ‘Well,’ said the whippy little Gay, a version of whom was forever at her side, ‘maybe stop it moving so much.’ She didn’t make any further contribution.

She is a state of being. Her greatness is all the things she is not: busy, doing washing up, various as to mood, expressive, fired up; it’s the marvellous minimal evenness. You try it!

All the Gays loved her. That’s how the film ended. The Gay graphic person at Vogue was saying, ‘I’ve got the same brain as AW. I knew it. I knew it..’ She’d chosen the cover he’d thought she’d chose, you see. She had one of the dresses on, in blue. She peered at the selection of covers, but the one she wanted she peered at a little more. That was it. An absolute absence of agony or indeed volume, as she selected.

Thursday 27th October 2016

I went to Kensington Palace to look at some newly acquired personal linen of Queen Victoria. I was shown into a private cupboard stacked to the ceiling with boxes marked, ‘Princess Margaret’s Coronation coronet’ and ‘Princess Diana’s pink Bruce Oldfield evening dress.’ Queen Victoria’s night-gown was enormous. Apparently her undergarments were given to servants as a reward for long service – which is why so many of them are still knocking about. The tea afterwards was dainty and I ate all of mine, unlike some of the other representatives. But I fell out with the PR afterwards who emailed by the hour wanting to know when we were going ‘live’ with coverage of the wretched DVD of the silly TV series about Queen Victoria. ‘If I were you,’ I said to the teenager, ‘I wouldn’t get on the wrong side of the Anna Wintour de nos jours.’ I was only trying to help.

A helicopter was coming in to land as I was leaving the Palace (me in a Prince William look with nautical slant and summer scarf uplift – Zara white jeans with biker detail and Zara blue nylon jackette). I rushed to the fence as did many others: Prince Andrew! Such a let down. Tremendous amount of very rubbishy luggage – hold-alls and suit bags and a plastic cold-box – heaved from the heli and put into the Bentley.

Once again at Hastings rabid all-white-male-with-wenches advance Bonfire Night I was thwarted. You may remember some years ago Genevieve Suzy, the Anna Wintour de nos jours, fell in a ditch and we never saw a thing. Well, this time, Angus Willis flung open the Tudor House and offered a vat of chowder. All sorts piled in and asked for seconds. The Tudor House was as always a glory. No electric light. One is transported back to Tudor Times in this, one of the most important new interiors in Britain since the War. Work that one out! Well, it transpired that Fergus and Angus had got themselves in a muddle re: accommodation. Long and short, there was no room for me, but Genevieve Suzy would take me in. But she’d got a huge party staying and it didn’t seem right. Besides I was feeling unwell suddenly so my car went back to London with me in it. I’d stopped earlier and bought a 1855 Worcester tea-set for £125 (we’ve still got that broken Dainty Lady TV teapot lid to contend with) and a Laura Ashley lamp-stand from the 1980s. So the day wasn’t wasted. And who could forget being in the Tudor House wreathed in smoke as in Tudor Times while the pointedly non-ethnic beer-swilling possession went by, quite literally a ball of fire with all the nasty torches, a ball of sullen resentment of some kind, a sour dug-in harking back to the past.

Joshua Baring’s birthday dinner was held at Vico: he lavished everything on the guests: Joshua himself has got Rothschild links, of course. As if that wasn’t enough, the Ducal Grandson was present, linking the party to England’s greatest ever man, plus a distillery heiress attended, her spirit sold at every counter in the land, and Patrick Lockyer, whose jam fortune is legendary. Two of the guests were so toxic they had to be kept separate and nobody was allowed to touch them. They’d been confined to quarters with a vile nori-virus for several days. They weren’t better, just suffering from cabin fever and having to get out at any cost. The Ducal Grandson said he couldn’t stand being a house-guest, especially after one host didn’t get up until 11, so nobody could go downstairs because only he could switch off the burglar alarm. There were quite a lot of other things and persons he can’t stand but I don’t quite recall them. He’s incredibly great and somehow thrilling, not just because of his connection to England’s greatest ever man. Patrick Lockyer on the other hand is so detailed and relentlessly condemned as fat by Joshua. They are bosom-buddies. In fact, Patrick’s hair, held in by prostate cancer medication, is more magnificent than ever – a high, chiselled miracle of coiffure. He confided that he is in the gym most days. The physique is in fact tremendous. He’s behind all the biggest scandals, issuing injunctions. All the best injunctions are issued by him. The more Joshua persecutes him – the other accusation is that he will be meeting a youth off the Bournemouth train at Waterloo: ‘No point in going to the loos,’ Joshua yelled, ‘there’ll be nobody from Bournemouth there..’ – the more he injuncts.  He’s very against Owen Jones, also, with whom he was at Uni.

My Prince William Look with Fashion Edge and Summer Scarf Uplift for Kensington Palace Queen Victoria Private Tour

Queen Victoria’s Nightie, Newly Acquired by Kensington Palace and Presently in a Private Cupboard, Not Shown to the Public

PR-Provided Tea at Kensington Palace.

Prince Andrew Lands in Field Beside KP

What it Is to be Tudor-ised! The Tudor House Hastings on Bonfire Night

The Incendiary Non-Ethnic Pre-Bonfire Night Possession as Seen from the Tudor House: Deeply Creepy

Fur-Trimmed Anna Wintour

Joshua Baring’s Birthday Treat Surprise at Vico

Seen on Tube by Robert Nevil

Robert Nevil in Jail: Shrewsbury Jail: Toilet Unit Idea should be More Widely Taken Up

Saturday 22nd October 2016

October is flying away: I can’t keep up with it. Merle Barr, formerly Head of Children, gave a simple supper in the first week of the month. She was crippled from her newly acquired allotment in the Highgate area: chard and kale were on the menu from it. Her tenacity and powers of seizure are such that she suddenly gained an allotment at the millionaire level, with George Michael over-looking. Angus Willis dined with Fergus Strachan. It emerged that if Hastings Council fail to remove his rubbish from outside the Angus Willis Home Store he goes straight through to the Home Secretary. After dining with Amber Rudd in Hastings, he’s on texting terms with her.

On the Sunday was Lord Arrowby’s birthday outing. He hired a speedboat for 12 Poor Little Rich Gays and Lesbians which bashed down the Thames and performed somersaults right in front of the Multis’ penthouse. I suppose it was legal. We weren’t even strapped in – possibly, free, there would be a higher chance of survival if there was somebody with an upright knife lurking in the water to burst the speedboat. Even so, the impact at that speed would surely be lethal. Those Poor Little Rich Gay and Lesbian bodies, so expensively tended, would have been smashed to pieces. Lord Arrowby lives a life of Government committees and shimmering in the background at the highest possible level, so I imagine recklessness of this type is an outlet. It’s rather like the Royal Family who love artificially-induced danger such as flying planes themselves.

At least my new Zara ‘Cossack’ jacket with frogging was suitable for a nautical setting. I teamed with my new Topman white skinny slacks. Lord Arrowby was wearing an ‘art’ mac by Dries, a Mondrian scarf, natural hair and no make-up. He looked magnificent.

Mercifully we survived for Browns in St Martin’s Lane where I sat with the Hot Boy Doc, who briefed me on the NHS: it’s all too awful. I don’t know how anyone works at anything full time with no choice not to. It must be ghastly. But just unimaginable if you’re being ‘inspected’ by rat-like individuals with no social connections. And not getting any money. At least the Hot Boy Doc can say, ‘If you don’t dry up, I’m phoning Lord Arrowy, and he’ll go straight through to the PM.’

What if the Autumn Tweed suddenly comes in at Topman and you miss it because you’re imprisoned in a ‘job’?  Mind you, don’t misunderstand me: all too often I’m trapped behind the camera, doing pieces for Dainty Lady TV, when I should shopping for antiques or clothes – but that’s something else.

The Hot Boy Doc has joined the National Trust and is working his way through the properties. Suddenly he said he’d missed me! What a rare outburst! I was touched and failed to rise to the occasion.

Robert Nevil, on the other hand, dined with Anthony Mottram, ‘consultant’ of Prague at Talli Joe’s, the new Indian small plate dining opportunity in Shaftesbury Avenue. Anthony Mottram didn’t make a scene about the small plates which generally he is against. ‘I’m amazed you didn’t barge your way into the Howard Hodgkin Opening,’ Robert Nevil said. Oh HH. He’s awfully revered, you know. All the same – an opening and me not there!

The next thing that happened was later that week Genevieve Suzy said how about going to the Ritz for a function?  I went down to the Dainty Lady TV offices where the Anna Wintour de nos jours was an icon-shield of unassailable, un-contradictable coiffure and metallic top. ‘The Howard Hodgkin,’ Genevieve drawled. ‘Of course we had a card. But it was on a Friday. Impossible.’

I forgot to say that while in Hastings for my birthday, on the Sunday following it, we visited the newly opened Pier which is incredibly wooden and bare in an important way.

Now we looked at the Ritz invitation a little more closely. Mohammed al-Fayed’s daughter’s launch was in Westbourne Grove. At a restaurant of her own making, it seemed. A vegetarian restaurant. Westbourne Grove. We had no idea how to get there. The Ritz had been mentioned misleadingly on the invitation because of the al-Fayed connection. We couldn’t possibly go.

All the same, Robert Nevil, Mohammed al-Fayed, thank you very much!

Instead we went into Rules upstairs bar for little rabbit, hare and eel bites from the Rules estate in the country. On regaining the Suzy residence we found the Dancing Master in her drawing room with a big-built young man still in his puffa-jacket. As far as we could tell, for he was quite gutteral, English not his first, and possibly not given to speaking very much in any case, he’d been done over by a gang-master in Walthamstow who refused to pay commission for the sales he was making at home on his computer. He’d given the gang-master what-for and now had no money for rent. This was where the Dancing Master came in. Anyway they skipped away together to settle this rent question, or rather the young man had that street way of walking all powered from the thighs. Genevieve gave a certain look after they’d gone and then we tended the dogs.

Lord Arrowby Speed-Boat Experience: Hold On Tight: You Bet

Lord Arrowby Speed-Boat Experience: in the Bowels of Bridge

Lord Arrowby Speed-Boat Experience: Privileged View of a Bridge

Lord Arrowby: Speed Boat Experience: Rare View of the Millenium Bridge: An Air-Sharpened Blade: Only From the River can its Thinness be Seen

Rules: Special Entrance

Rules: Bar Bites:Eel

Hastings Pier, Newly Built after Fire: Important Wooden Statement

Tuesday 18th October 2016

So there was Genevieve Suzy with the Dancing Master sitting in her bay window in Hastings having my birthday tea without me. Her coiffure was raised to new heights but all other parts except her coiffure were shrieking at her composition. She had composed the whole event. I brought in my outfits in bags: I was planning my biscuit and powder blue stand-by for the evening restaurant dinner. ‘It’s not that kind of place,’ she said. I was to go as I was. But first we had cheese straws (luxury) and champagne and an old episode of ‘The Good Life’ – the one where they can’t bring themselves to kill a chicken.  The Dancing Master’s card was a bespoke miracle of memories from 1957: songs of the year, Andy Williams, Frankie Vaughan. No Frank Ifield, though. Even a DVD was included. It was a three-piece fold-out. The detail!

Then we advanced on Maggie’s – over the shingle in fact. Maggie the person was long ago marginalised by Gays but her name lives on. Gays took over her fish and chip hut – the ones who own The Old Glass Walking-Stick, Hastings’ loveliest boutique B&B, where you fight for your life beneath the weight of bed decor such as cushions, tassels and throws. They gay-fied Maggie’s while getting rid of her (Littlehampton beckoned, I think) and her marvellous old photos of fisher life pasted to the walls.

So it was a fantastic fish and chip menu with battered prawn starter, cod main and Knickerbocker Glory for the sweet finish. Wine was from Borough Market in London. We just glowed there at the difference of it all: when you think that Genevieve Suzy of Dainty Lady TV is the nearest you’re going to get to Anna Wintour in this life. The Polish co-owner, the only other diner with his family – did he have any idea?

Then Genevieve said, ‘We’re going to my club.’ We approached a structure on stilts practically in the sea: the East Hastings Sea Angling Association. ‘You’ve come through the wrong door,’ the hostess said. We had to pay our £2.50 entry to the large youth by the other door. The area where we sat was designated ‘No work clothes’. ‘We’re here,’ said Genevieve firmly as if there might be doubt about it. The club was in darkness, subsumed by a live band. The roof, I noticed, was like an upturned boat and varnished to perfection. Ship-shape, I think, is the word. I was a little stunned, though, I must admit. But then I began to notice the ladies: all over 70, and bopping, such spangly shoes and grace, and their clothes! So well-fitting, such astonishing absence of any lapses of taste. Are ladies in the fishing world retaining a bella figura in later life because of their trade? Unlikely. It was a miracle, anyway. Genevieve actually spoke to some of them; she apologised for her humble nautical top. Can you imagine? Anna Wintour had come amongst them and they knew her not.

We were thinking of a piece for Dainty Lady TV : there must be many such places were the elderly bop on a Saturday night in a kind of twilight not thought worth a mention; where grace and elegance reign, but a distinct throb of sex is not concealed. This generation of over 70s must be the first to have bopped and disco-ed in their youth, rather than swaying to the Big Band.

Eventually we retired, waving off a clutch of ladies who departed in a taxi: no men but they were undaunted and arranging to return the next week. Back at the house, Genevieve and the Dancing Master sat up all night establishing a rapport with a guest house in Bangkok. In the morning, Genevieve texted from her bedroom. I did wonder if she’d returned to New York but she hadn’t.

Penelope Keith: in her Day. The Good Life was part of My Birthday Treat

Maggie’s Gay-ified: Farrow and Ball Walls?

Maggie’s: the Prawn Starter

Maggie’s: Cod Main

Maggie’s the Knickerbocker Glory

The East Hastings Sea Angling Association Club House: Interior

The East Hastings Sea-Angling Association Club House: Exterior

Friday 14th October 2016

I gained 59 years on 1st October. Really I was going to drift but Genevieve Suzy graciously offered a fish dinner at Hastings with the Picture Editor of the Daily Mail and the dancing master from BBC4, both of whom I’ve met before.

Great Dixter Plant Fayre was to be my private treat, although I planned to buy no plants. The sun came out in autumn gold as I swept into the car park. Lo and behold! The Multis!  Reigning down as if from Heaven. What a gift! They were beside one of their oldest cars, now vegetative, returned to Nature. Actually it was all their purchases from the Fayre.  Who were they talking to but the daughter of Law Lord, the friend of Bruce MacBain they’d met at his party a few weeks before? She volunteers at Dixter. What a mesh! I drive up randomly to Dixter and at once am connected, completely bedded in, Dixter one of my homes anyway.

At once the Photo Multi poked me into a tiny hut that happened to be there, overgrown with brambles and crammed with debris. I had to wheeze my head through its window and be graphed.  But the graphs were good and gave me high outfit satisfaction. I was wearing my Zara palm print t-shirt, Topman grey stretch slacks and my v. old Prada iridescent coat. ‘Evan’s here!’ the Multis said. Evan! Could it get better? ‘His jeans are extraordinary,’ the blond Multi said. ‘Harvey Nicks,’ I said. It all worked out so well with Evan. I hovered near him at a stall then saw some plants had been moved apart as if reserved. ‘Are these yours?’ I said. What an opportunity! Clever me, on my birthday to seize it.  ‘I think they are,’ he said. He had a greyhound on the end of a lead. His look! Boots with crenellated soles, leather-like blue jeans, marshall jacket. Extreme for a plant fayre. But others seemed to be buying the plants. He was scarcely involved. ‘You’d better watch out somebody doesn’t make off with your plants,’ I said. ‘Oh, I’m sure everybody is very…’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s a moot point how nice gardeners are.’

Multis kindly bade me to tea at their desmesne which is being renovated to the point it’s got no bathrooms, bedrooms or a kitchen at the moment. It was marvellous misty, orange gloaming. The Blond Multi was isolated in the scene on the massive lawn with a teapot while the Photo showed me his gardening. The borders and grounds – well, it’s not that bland paid-for millionaire look. The Photo Multi buys and buys with crazy abandon and somehow something happens. Perhaps he is especially blessed in the plant world. The plant world repays his wild buying. It likes him in a way it likes less those who fuss and pinch. We had savoury muffins from the Fayre for tea then a tour of the house. I was the first to see it, they said. Such a privilege. Incredible work and it will be good, I’m sure. On parting, the Blond Multi said he couldn’t bear the latest trend for massive hugging and clamping together of bodies of any kind as well as kissing when greeting and parting.

So I drove on to Hastings, where Genevieve Suzy, coiffure heightened to glory, had been having my birthday tea with the Dancing Master but no me.

The Multis’ Oldest Car Alive with Plants

New Concept: the Planted Car: The Multis’ Oldest Car at Great Dixter Plant Fayre

Evan!

The Garden Itself at Dixter on 1st October, Looking More Radiant than it Had Done a Few Weeks Before

Dixter Bathed in Golden Light for My Birthday

I was Privately Informed by the Law Lord’s Daugher that this was Fergus’s Favourite View of the Garden at that Moment

Thursday 13th October

After that Royal Academy pinnacle, it was off to the Far West to attend to estate matters and spend some days with the Gay Mother. I took a damson consignment down. The Gay Mother at 92 is working hard on her fish frying technique. At one time she said that only I, Adrian Edge, could fry the lemon sole to perfection. But suddenly I was abolished from the duty and she took over. With her efforts though she was dissatisfied. Crispness had not been achieved. There was a low period. Now she triumphed and added a fennel sprig, both decorative and novel as to flavour.

That was the first evening – the sole as it should be. The next day I went officially to the county town on estate business. When I got back she’d been pureé-ing. A fine quantity of imperial purple pureé had materialised. The damson is a kingly fruit. It is named after Damascus where there was much Royalty – as well as gorgeous silk cloth. She’d also been telephoning round the neighbourhood offering damsons. I was to take them to neighbours. I got mild coffee poisoning as a result. In one house I criticised their washing machine for its bowed front in my delirium.

Cousin Smurry lunched on the Saturday – thank God she liked the guinea fowl and the damson purée for pudding. Then on the Sunday the Gay Mother decreed a walk after tea to see what latest outrages the pheasant shoot had committed. On the way back after prodding of the dyke in quest of missing wild flowers, I went ahead. Turning to monitor the Gay Mother’s progress, I saw that she was down on verge, sitting and marooned. I helped her up. She’d been trying to pick up litter and tripped on a tiny tree stump. At that moment a neighbour came by in a car and stopped for polite conversation while I plucked the leaves off the Gay Mother’s back. As on the stage, you can adjust costume or wipe up a spillage without the audience noticing. Back in the house, the Gay Mother found she’d cut her foot and her hand was bruised. So it was off to the Minor Injuries unit which was full of youths in football outfits who were either gashed or their ankles twisted. They had ‘mates’ with them. They’d never seen such a pair as the Gay Mother and myself. I was wearing Zara black skinny jeans and my v old Prada iridescent light Spring coat. We were back home in time for Poldark.

The Gay Mother’s Damson Quota: Note the Historic Larder Setting

The Gay Mother’s Finished Purée Triumph: Angus Willis Level of Bowl Styling: Heritage Formica and Sugar Tin, 1956 

Thursday 6th October 2016

Literally half way up a damson tree one evening and the next at the Royal Academy. The private view of the Abstract Expressionist Exhib.  Of which I can’t say I took the tiniest bit of notice. Genevieve Suzy outgunned Anna Wintour both in height of coiffure and actually being present. Anna Wintour did not gain admittance. Genevieve’s friend is art critic of the Evening Standard as well as the husband in a husband and wife painting team: he said the exhib was poorly put together when he met him in the gallery.

Royston King had also asked me to be his plus one so I was doubly present being also in the Dainty Lady TV dimension. We teamed with Royston and took Zedel for dinner to discuss our coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh, should he die. Which he will do one day.

Andrew Marr, on the other hand, was not present, nor my great rival, Robert Peston. We scored direct hits with: the Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, the President of the Royal Horticultural Society, Sir Richard,  and the former owner of the bike shop… partial hit with Grayson Perry (he talking to the critic of the Evening Standard, us hovering in attendance but not speaking). Once, before the Multis rejected the Art World, we were possibly recognised by Grayson. I saw a pair from the Multis’ former Art World casting filthy looks in my direction.

A huge surprise was the incredible arse of Sir Patland Cash, the Tennis Champion.  I mean his presence as well as arse. He was a hit but not direct because no words exchanged, no mutual recognition. Alfred was also a hit, as was Lord Linley and his sister, Lady Sarah Chatto, rarely seen together I was later informed by Joshua Baring. They were somehow united, bound together both in tininess and as strange satellites of the Royal Family permitted to rove in the outside world. Later Lord L left by bicycle. I saw him in the lobby in a cycling helmet. So not used for the private after-dinner in the Reynolds Room.

Or perhaps he preferred to get home for TV.

The Arse of Champion: Sir Patland Cash

Sir Patland Cash: Great Arse

Sir Patland Cash: Incredible Arse

Grayson!

Sir Grayson Perry: Frockage

Alfred!

Lordy Lordy Lord Linley

Lady Sarah and Lord L: So Close to the Throne! So Much a Pair as Outer Satellites of Majesty 

Monday 3rd October 2016

Sunday 18th September was my arrival at Robert Nevil’s farmstead in the nether Midlands, still trying to wrest shape from my life while battling with a watery post-operative eye. Actually how was I battling? I suppose the mental struggle to work out what was going on with it, whether it was going to recover, whether I could be sure it was better by the following day because if not, Moorfields said I was to be back there – which would have been awkward from the other end of the country.

But we were to pick damsons and lurch on farm tracks in a ‘pick-up’. At the wheel was Robert Nevil in a boiler suit. I planned an out-of-use Prada mac from the fashion line. During farm work, Robert Nevil doesn’t speak. From earliest childhood, farm work was a matter of life or death.

Damsons are a rarity, I suppose. Not a usual type of plum. There was that. Not many would devote themselves to damsons on quite such a scale. After the picking, I suffered tingling in the hands and numbness and feared that my heart might be at an end.

There was one outing to Ludlow for an antique shop which was only possibly going to open because the owner was in the Czech Republic and might be able to find someone to be there or might not despite proclaiming openness both in the shop window and online. After all that it wasn’t open. But there were other antique shops in one of which I failed to buy some antique serving plates and bowls  – I’ve got terribly behind with these things – but somehow it’s possible to be in the place of buying with the wherewithall and the need and still not buy. The drive to buy can suddenly go just as religious faith or the muse evap. Buying is always a sudden flash in the end. Too many considerations, and you won’t buy. Which is why one sometimes buys the wrong thing. With Faith though or the Muse it’s always right which isn’t fair and shows that buying is a greater challenge. Buying is a desperate grab at the future for you cannot know how well what is bought will sit and be loved by you.

We visited Ludlow Parish church and the grave of A.E.Houseman. Except I think it was only a partial grave for some sections of him were detached and donated to the Pony Club of Great Britain. I was appalled by the untidy state of this church which is as big as a cathedral. It was frankly a tip with its children’s corner, scruffy notice boards and mucky carpeted sections. The floor was heaving up – Victorian tiles but bad ones. Later on in the Gay Mother’s little chapel-church I noticed how top-notch the Victorian tiled floor is.

We picked the damsons in the gloaming with cows encroaching in the orchard. There was an air of drama in the low autumn light with the strange black fruit. We could have been whirled up into the universe at any moment like Tess of the D’Urbevilles in her winter phase with those turnips. Especially with Robert Nevil not speaking. In fact now I look back I think he was lucky not to have been subsumed. What with my circulation going the picking was a near-death experience.

Back at the homestead, with telly on, I sat on a sofa with Robert Nevil’s sister’s mother-in-law. She is 103 and only undertaking small scale knitting projects, such as knitted toys, in case she dies and her knitting isn’t finished. You may recall she knitted the Queen Mother a few years ago but said she wouldn’t undertake any other Royal Family members, the Queen Mother had been so difficult. I couldn’t see that she is likely to expire soon, her coiffure and carriage are so good. In fact she is a pleasure to look at and an excellent sofa life-force. Far more lively on the sofa and alert as to the environs of Birmingham (well-known for complication) than many half her age.

At some point Robert Nevil revealed that he has twice been electrocuted, once because his cleaner had destroyed a socket under a bed with the vac.

The Ludlow Antique Shop Not Open Despite Being Open

A Ludlow Window Display

My Damson-Picking Ensemble: An Out-of-Use Prada Mac

The Damson Hoard

This is Where a Dog Jumped up and Muddied my Leg. But the Mud Brushed Out. We were Trying to Get the Dog into the Front Seat of the ‘Pick-Up’. It Went In, Whirled Around, Covered Everything in Mud and Leapt out Again. 

Wednesday 28th September 2016

Harry Rollo and Mercury Mr Kitchen came round: I did Ottolenghi. It was just ourselves; just you, me and Alfred – that’s an in-joke. But as it happened I saw Alfred the following week, now in a winter torment apparently and accompanied by his Official Hostess, looking fabulously Heidi but with that higher colour that comes from the fight against Death which she was clearly winning. It is she who says, ‘You must come to dinner… just you, me and Alfred.’ Whether anyone ever does isn’t known.

But that’s another day. Harry mentioned that the daughter of Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures (a previous one) casts spells. She put a curse on a world-famous film director and he didn’t make another film for ten years. ‘That’s funny,’ I said, ‘because Cousin Paquita’s mother was the wife of the Royal Librarian and she was a White Witch.’

So clearly witchcraft is rife at Court.

Also pieces of metal: for it was after getting back from Buckingham Palace that my eye started playing up. Worse at night. I spent hours trying to put into words the symptoms but the nurse at Moorfields cut off me off: ‘There’s a piece of metal lodged,’ he said, ‘and I’m going to get it out.’ Which he did with a terrifying spike.

So for the journey to Salisbury the next day I wasn’t in top form: it’s horrid having something wrong with your eye because you can’t see it. Plus if it gets infected you could go blind. I managed to get Val on the phone from the car. At least he’s alive – but not heard of since. He’d been clamped to the lav for weeks. Quite unable to get on with the curtains for my back bedroom. Lord knows what will become of that fabric which cost £400.

I only just got to the Court in time for Anthony Mottram’s mother’s pre-funeral family concert in the public drawing room of the retirement housing complex. She was enthroned in the front row rather than in her coffin. It was her idea – the pre-funeral designation – mainly as a way of getting her sons to buck up and give the concert which they were reluctant to do owing to advancing years and having less puff. ‘You’re not to call it that,’ other residents said beforehand. ‘Don’t say anything about pre-funeral.’ But the family acquited themselves well: how many families have four instrumentalists of high or even international standard? I was mobbed by Court Lady residents: ‘Dainty Lady TV!’ they said. ‘Would you like to meet Lady Primrose?’ Lady Primrose is the star resident or some of them, not quite as blazing as Anthony Mottram’s mother. There was a tremendous tangle of zimmers and walkers parked by the door. One lady, departing afterwards, heaved her zimmer over her head to free it before setting off.

Thursday 22nd September 2016

On Saturday 10th September, Robert Nevil and I left for Great Dixter. We lunched there and made remarks. We were lucky to escape jail. Some Americans were being shown round by Fergus, no doubt on a massively paying basis. We couldn’t bear them. They were so ‘me, me, me.’  But hanging baskets at Dixter? And a cactus garden? I was worried. The recent hot spell had taken its toll: a lot was fried up but enough remained. Let the graphs speak.

On Monday 12th I took the Lapada Private Champagne evening view at Berkeley Square: it’s an antiques fayre. Lord Arrowby was held up by some of the highest in the land. We ran into a Robert Nevil early boyfriend. I said, ‘This is Lord Arrowby. He was held up by…’ But Lord Arrowby wasn’t having any name-dropping. Later he said, ‘Hello, Garter.’ It was Garter King of Arms. They discussed departmental boundaries for two minutes. Then it was, ‘Hello Lord Grimsby.’ He was recently realigned so as to be out of the Government. Lord Arrowby was comforting. ‘We’ve done well,’ he said. ‘I’ve bought you Garter and Lord Grimsby.’ No sign of Wright-Fogg Junior who was seen at Lapada last year. We grew impatient with the antiques and the crowds. Lord Arrowby homed in on the one good art gallery, called Boundary, and had learned confab about Abstract Expressionism before we flew out and into a taxi for Talli Joe, the new Indian small plate dining (yes! small plates) restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue where Mela used to be. Must in fact be Mela re-furbished and named. India is Lord Arrowby’s second home and he was thrilled to find India’s only pork dish amongst the small plates. We also had the one Robert Nevil and Joshua Baring had there (it was them who brought Talli Joe to the fore) but I can’t remember what it was except exquisite. It might have been a crab and pomegranate curry. Radiance radiated from Lord Arrowby: his glow was quiet but deep.

Meantime, Dainty Lady TV have broken their teapot lid. This is a disaster.  The serving of tea in the traditional manner is at the core of Dainty Lady TV life. It was sent to the basement to be mended by the handyman, but Genevieve Suzy ordered it to be retrieved and taken to museum conservators near Regent’s Park. It might be cheaper to buy other on eBay. An identical model would be about £190. ‘We need to crowd-fund it,’ Genevieve said. When we went to Buckingham Palace last week we investigated the Royal Collection Shop. A Queen’s 90th Birthday Limited Edition is £280. Well, why not just buy?

There’s so much going on I feel shape leaving my life.

Great Dixter: Hanging Basket Effect? Going Too Far?

Dixter: a Cactus Garden?

Pot Corner at Dixter: Horror?

Dixter: More Like It

Dixter: Incredible, Bold Combining

Pinus Patula: Conifers Once Depised Given a New Future by Dixter

Classic Dainty Lady TV Moment at Buckingham Palace

Where Is It? Where Oh Where? The Dainty Lady TV Teapot without Lid, Which Broke