An expression we’ve heard a lot recently, what with the anniversary of the Great War but one I always use at the end of November as yet again we hurl ourselves into the minefield that is the Festive season, with zero prospect of a truce on Christmas Day.  At least we are match ready following a wonderful summer and a very pleasant autumn, although that brings me to the first item on today’s agenda.

Autumn colour – up there with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy if you are deluded enough to imagine that it can be applied to the average garden.  My own plot being on the small side nothing merits a permanent place unless it delivers in at least three seasons but plants being what they are, they all present their autumn colour at different times; the good-for-nothing, diseased horse chestnut, for example,  drops its manky leaves from the Ist September, so that for the next four months it looks as if some plant is dying a slow and unlovely death, one at a time, which is a long way from the fiery display that I wanted.  And it means that the period of time spent collecting wet, rotting leaves takes on the proportions of cleaning the Augean stables.  Oh, look it up, for goodness sake.

This is a busy time of year.  No sooner has one finished the round of summer entertainment and harvest bottling than there are countless plays, films and exhibitions to be viewed, not least the wonderful display at Strawberry Hill House, tickets still available.  Highly recommended film this week is ‘The Shoplifters’ which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes but don’t let that put you off.  Or the fact that it’s in Japanese.  I personally welcome a learning opportunity.

And so we check our bayonets and brace ourselves for D-day – December 1st when the relentless countdown to Christmas begins in earnest, with no prospect of a bomb disposal man to help.  You will not be surprised to hear that despite the many calls upon my time, preparation is already well under way.  Cards written, booze delivered, Sellotape dispenser loaded and tested. Men, for some reason unknown to me, are excused all involvement until the 24th  – how did that happen?  But for the women the moment is at hand, step forward, pick up your hip flasks and let’s go over the top.  Watch out for the leaves.

Life, I have decided, is now not going to last long enough to waste time on bad movies, and I speak as someone who has sat through way more than her fair share.  I thought ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was tedious (Except for the bit on the train), I hated ‘La La Land’ and ‘Twelve Years a Slave’ went on for about twenty.  Don’t even start me on ‘The Colour Purple’.  Never noticing who made what, an element of  Mea culpa here,  I went to see ‘Widows’ this afternoon and it is yet another Thanksgiving Turkey, although if I must be fair, a new line,  it does feature strong women played by people picked for their ability rather than their looks.  Might this be a trend?

Ironically,  this week things had been going very well.  I went to a fascinating course about historic gardens in the City of London – there are dozens, but almost no evergreen trees you will be astonished to discover – and finally made it to the Frieda Kahlo exhibition which is brilliant.  Yesterday I motored down to Bath to spend the day with Elder Son and we had an extremely pleasant time.  It really is a lovely city when the tourist aren’t too thick on the ground although it’s multi-storey car park genuinely comes close to rivalling the one in Truro for sheer face-slapping ugliness.  Actually as does the one in Bristol now I think about it…

Despite the promise of a fine autumnal day,  the heavens opened like a re-make of Noah’s ark but we were happily right outside the Museum Of Fashion and were able to take shelter and ask a question about gloves that had been bothering me.  (Said gloves now on display at the Lost Treasure exhibition at Strawberry Hill House in case I haven’t mentioned it before). Silver lining etc etc.  which is not how I would describe the night that followed.  Last week I had the carpets shampooed –  so much more thorough than hoovering and apparently that has to be done more than twice a year – and with a karmic inevitability the cat decided this would be the perfect time to throw up all night and all over the house.  And bed. It says something of my exhaustion after the drive home that I couldn’t even be bothered to get up and kill her.

And today we remembered the ending of the Great War, the one that was going to end all wars.   I always find it a moving ceremony, especially as I recall my grandfather who died at Ypres but I can’t help thinking that remembering couldn’t have been uppermost in people minds when they had another, even bigger one just two decades later.  Or all the other ones that carry on now, in Palestine, in Syria, in Yemen ….   I might be guilty of not learning from my mistakes but so it seems is everyone else.  Time we did, people, time we did.

A quick note to self that Autumn has officially returned, heating and opaque tights back on and tonight we get an extra hour in bed, the latter information never having been fully grasped by Miss Kitty who continues to demand feeds at four hourly intervals  regardless of the season.

At the risk of making Strawberry  Hill House as repetitive as Brexit I will just mention that I have been there twice more this week, once to escort a group of retired Magistrates who were as well behaved as one would expect although sadly unable to locate a book of instructions for 18th century beaks which apparently lurks on the library shelves.   A shining example to other visitors – I should have filmed them.  Last night we gave other visitors the chance to tour the house at night accompanied by a series of actors posing as characters ranging from a serial killer painted by Hogarth to Cardinal Wolsey.  A brilliant evening, sadly now sold out but something that it would be madness not to repeat.  Watch this space – or the House website if you require actual details.

More drama on Tuesday when the lights at my day job burst into flames. Probably an ill-aimed thunderbolt.  Obviously the fire brigade had to be called – at my insistence – and the afternoon passed far more pleasantly than usual with me able to demonstrate my considerable knowledge of fire extinguishers and take a number of selfies, including one in the actual fire engine.   I forwarded this to colleagues who were not lucky enough to be there, one of whom who enquired, somewhat archly I thought, where I was going to drive to.  “To the pub” I replied “to celebrate saving the building. With me at the wheel.  Obvs”.  I expect to make the front page of next months in house magazine.  Let me know how many copies you’d like.

The week ended in hospital – this is turning into a habit – where a very sweet young woman of Oriental origin who introduced herself by the somewhat unlikely name of Maureen gave my heart a detailed examination via ultra sound.  A bit like seeing your unborn baby for the first time although hopefully I won’t have to give birth to it in six months time.  It took forever because people kept wandering in and chatting which, whilst a glowing tribute to my cloak of invisibility, makes a slight nonsense of the ‘Do not disturb.  Consultation in progress’ sign on the door.

The examination required deep breaths to be taken and held for several seconds.  After about thirty minutes of this Maureen said “Now take you final breath”.  No sense of irony then?

Up and at it at 6.08.  Evidence that Lady K is back on top form?  Sadly not, merely the result of a friend in Thailand deciding that I would welcome a text with pictures of her husband and a request to remind her of what I gave her for her birthday – a week ago.  She will claim jet lag but I draw immense satisfaction from the knowledge that although she is ten years younger, something she does frequently remember, she is clearly already  in possession of few of her marbles than I am.

Back to the only real item of interest this week,  given that I am going to,spare you details of the conversation I had with the Head of Making Traffic Even Worse at the local council.  It turns out the whole scheme (A 20 mph speed limit on every road in the borough) is funded by Transport for London in an attempt to make car travel so unbearable that we take to the buses.  What a brilliant scheme. And what could possibly go wrong?

Much more importantly I am in a state of shock and awe and I speak as a woman who thought Niagara Falls was over-rated.  The exhibition, The Lost Treasures of Horace Walpole,  has finally opened at Strawberry Hill House, or it will later today if you want to be slavishly accurate; not something that ever bothers me.  Leader of fashion that I am, I have already been twice.  It was described by one journalist as one of the ten best things he had ever seen and this was NOT the Culture Correspondent of the Sun.   Jaw dropping, people, an absolute MUST SEE.

When I first went to the house over twenty years ago, it was full of filing cabinets and strip lighting, with the ‘damask’ hanging off the walls.  After years of fund raising and restoration we opened in 2010 with a magical transformation.  The house was beautiful but empty.  Since then several items, or replicas, have returned, the contents having been scattered to the four corners of the earth in a sale in 1842. But now, like the Terminator, they are back.  Not everything but about 140 items and the effect is astonishing.  Don’t do anything else today, don’t get up, don’t make coffee, do absolutely nothing until you’ve booked a ticket. Our poor ugly duckling turns out to be the most beautiful swan in the world.

And buy an umbrella in the gift shop.  They’re adorable.

At the other end of the spectrum of pleasure I visited the Oceania exhibition at the Royal Academy.  Not really worth a detour, even though you can get in free if you happen to have a New Zealand passport.  I did get a very nice email from the management when I told them that in their cafe, which has no signage, it takes three members of staff twelve minutes to dust the Kit Kats and finally get round to serving a coffee, information which I will be sharing with my 127,000 followers on Trip Advisor.

I related this sorry tale to the cafe manager at Strawberry Hill  and asked him what would become of his staff if he got a similar complaint.  Let’s just say I am pretty certain it could never happen.  Yet another reason to go. See you there.

Yes, the relentless drought that was the three months without my blog has come to an end, not because of any motivation on my part, (That would be an unusual event) but because of the persistent complaints from my reader(s), culminating in a visit from Aggrieved Architect of Arundel demanding immediate action.  Not, let me make it clear, that I have been idle for a single, solitary second.

The early part of the Season was the usual manic whirlwind but rather than die down as is traditional in August, a month when it is usually so cold and wet that you might as well go shooting in Scotland, everyone partied on in the capital.  Highlights, I like to think,  were two parties I gave, one involving a number of complete strangers which was particularly successful, and Useless the Younger developing a taste for hurling heavy items of furniture off the second floor balcony.  At my behest I should add.   He didn’t just start doing it on a whim although it being UTY no-one would be remotely surprised. I won’t go into details because I am still reeling from the news that his latest – and horrifyingly profitable – career is as a tattooist.  Do let me know if you fancy your body being permanently engraved by an enthusiastic beginner.  Mates rates, obvs.

Before I could turn round I had to organise a wedding in Scotland – outfits by Frieda Kahlo and PAC-a-Mac in a particularly lovely shade of fuschia to match the bride’s nose.  There was the tiniest of hiccups caused by over enthusiastic pre-toasting of the happy couple and the groom ended up with one of the bridesmaids by mistake.  An annulment is imminent.  There are photographs of the event available for £9.99 and the usual sae.  Over 18s only.

Before I could sober up it was harvest time at the allotment and the gruelling heat outside was outdone by the clouds of steam from the pickling and preserving in the kitchen. A bumper year for blackberries since you ask.

There is also a new and rather time consuming man in my life.  OMG, you are thinking, the woman has finally lost (the little that was left, or for that matter ever existed) her reason.  Be still your beating hearts, the young man in question is a puppy and I am only babysitting for his real owner.  He is a miniature schnauzer and very beautiful, I hope it goes without saying.  We go for walks which take hours not only because he is unable to pass a fag end in the gutter without trying to eat it (Panic Googling of ‘Does nicotine kill dogs) but also because it is rare to pass anyone en route without them stopping to exclaim on his cuteness.  I am definitely going to get one.

All this finally, inevitably  took its toll and it ended in a blue light trip to the Bedlam that is our local A and E.  The staff, none of whom appeared to be over 25, were bemused to be treating someone who was actually English and could understand what they were saying to the extent that someone asked if I was a doctor. Staggeringly I resisted the temptation to say yes.  I discharged myself when the risk of dying of boredom rather than a myocardial infarction became overwhelming and I appear to have survived.  If no blog appears next week you’ll know I made the wrong decision.  An unlikely event.

The sky is overcast and grey, the garden is waist deep in leaves and is that a nip in the air?  Yes readers, it is July in England as we know it and, we now realise, love it.  For over two months we have sweltered beneath a relentlessly beating sun and anyone who thinks we are wimps for complaining should try moving about a large, crowded city when if the humidity rose any higher, it would be classed as very hot rain.

Obviously any attempt at creativity is out of the question, not that anyone would have had the strength or inclination to read anything.  And the heatwave couldn’t have come at a worse time than in the middle of the summer social season when no-one sits still for a moment.  I had to leave a performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ because of sheer exhaustion and that was taking place outside with the champagne to hand.  Imagine the Calcutta-esque experience of being INSIDE a London theatre, the most uncomfortable places on earth on a good night.

When not lying quietly on the sofa with my brain attempting to melt out through my ears, I have been shopping.  Some duties rise above even personal pain and a winter wardrobe doesn’t plan itself.  (So far a tweed jacket and two dresses; it’s a start). In an icy, air conditioned store even choosing a pair of tights can be made to last hours and that’s been the outer limit of my attempts at  creative thinking.

Last year, and I do keep records, the allotment only required watering on three occasions.  This year the one imperative work of the day has been to get there by 7.00 am and pour thousands of gallons onto the parched earth.  On reflection I may have overdone it a bit due to seasonal mental impairment and an overheated head. I’ve seen drier paddy fields.

And as Head of Empathy the suffering of others has been uppermost in my mind, particularly the plight of wildlife. ( Empathy, by the by, is really draining, even for someone like me to whom it comes naturally.  Don’t even try it.)   No less than three squirrels have died in my garden in the last two weeks; the last one falling thirty feet from a tree and narrowly missing Elder Son as he drank his morning espresso.  Perhaps they get heat stroke too?

The intolerable temperatures makes sleeping next to impossiable and so everyone else is in a foul and tetchy mood but, and there is always a plus side if you look hard enough,  I am now completely up to date on every box set that has ever been available online.  Another week and I might have been reduced to watching ‘Love Island’ at three in the morning.  The horror, the horror!

But despite what the doom mongers would have us believe I am sure this won’t happen again for another forty years.  It’s just God’s way of reminding us that we are British and dismal summers have made us what we are.  Much more of this and we’d be turning into foreigners, taking siestas, drinking Campari, driving on the wrong side of the road.  Let’s bear that in mind and be grateful.  It wasn’t THAT bad.  There wasn’t even a hosepipe ban.

 

 

 

It said in The Times, so ergo a matter of record, that the British are morning people and hopefully you will agree that that is A Good Thing.  (At some point I must find time to go through these blogs and compile a list of Things Officially Stated to be Good. It’s probably how they came up with the Ten Commandments).  By the evening we have apparently slumped back to our normal selves before listening to ‘Book at bedtime’ and ending the day on a national low.

I am very much a morning person although not quite as early as the cat would like me to be, what with dawn, her breakfast bell, ringing at 4.00am in June. If this goes on much longer she will find her Whole Foods Organic Kitty Kaviar will become a bowl of Lidl’s Extra Economy Pet Food, some circus animal filler.  Perhaps she should join me on my Scottish adventures but in Mid-winter to break her of the habit…

The dizzy round of summer events started to look like Hyde Park Corner in the rush hour even before the error of judgment to spend time in Brighton.  No names, no pack drill but you know who you are and we must show more restraint.  At some point.  Probably in the distant future.

Thence to Hastings to sample the legendary Maggie’s Restaurant before heading back for a night out in London and then the Annual Pub Quiz Team barbecue, no less bacchanalian than last year and reporting of which is best kept to a miminum.  As in ‘Drink was taken’.  Two guests have since left the country and one goes into hospital on Monday, events that I continue to assume are unrelated.

The birthday next day of Useless the Younger was positively respectable by comparison.  What is wrong with young people?  (See Blogs 3, 4, 7, 11 and 14).

Let’s, and not for the first time, blame everything on the weather.  Which, whisper it if you dare, continues to be glorious.  It was described on Radio 4 (ergo etc) as Goldilocks weather – not too hot, not too cold.  Moderation that does, and always will, define us as a nation.  And summer is never lovelier that first thing in the morning.  (You will have to insert here your own Wordsworthian stuff about sparkling dew.  I don’t do poetic).

Marie Antoinette said as she faced the guillotine ‘Just one little minute more, Monsieur Executioner’ and today or tomorrow – or even every day – just stop, preferably first thing when optimism is still coursing through your veins and take a moment to enjoy the now.  Just a minute.

I was momentarily touched when a colleague said that he’d missed my blog recently, the reason being that it made him realise his own lot wasn’t so bad after all.  One does what can, Rupert, and at least you have the wit to realise that what appears to lesser mortals to be frivolous froth is, in fact, up there with ‘The Bridge’.

We are now well into The Season and obviously my time for writing is severely limited, dashing from one society event to the next, often in crippling footwear. Added to which I’ve been on no less than three training courses, one of which was designed to promote pastoral care and focussed on empathy.  Gilding the lily or what?  Naturally I came top, against a very weak field,  but in a caring, non-competitive way.

Then there have been the endless stream of Bank Holidays – when did they start to happen every fortnight? People making advertisements for sofas, a must have item for every extra day off, must be exhausted although in a stab at ordinariness there wasn’t one for the Royal Wedding (Day off, not sofa) just getting married on a Saturday like everyone else.

I went to a friend’s street party and mixed with the Ordinary British until it got too hot and we retired to a resident’s shady garden where we set up a VIP area,  Harry ‘n’ Meghan bunting taking the place of the more traditional velvet rope, and drank ourselves into a stupor.  Who knew rose wine was so potent?  Certainly not the usual suspects who ended up in the usual hedge.

Now my attention is to be entirely taken up with nuptials of a different kind.  My old school pal, Sluice Nurse,  is expecting a visitor from Australia where she once lived – or was more likely deported for yet another of her driving offences. (Note to self: check when we stopped sending miscreants to the colonies.  And why.)  He is apparently a millionaire with a crush on her and she wants me and Staff Nurse to accompany them on a tour of Scotland in the role of chaperones.

Staff and I have other plans.  No surprise there, readers.  What better spouse is there than one who is seriously rich and lives on the other side of the world, providing he stays there? (Why, oh why didn’t I marry the other Rupert,  Murdoch?)  Sluice says he is mind numbingly  boring as if that ever debarred a man from going down the aisle.  We plan to dress as bridesmaids AT ALL TIMES and carry bouquets.  I will scour the local charity shops for a wedding dress and we are all set.  Let’s hope Sluice has warmed to the idea by the time we arrive at our final secret destination – you’ve guessed it  – Gretna Green.

I had a letter in The Times this week in which I referred to my own courting days, when my husband-to-be advised me to cross the road via a zebra crossing because I’d getter higher damages in the event of an accident.  I forwarded it to him, reminding him of his (only) romantic gesture and pointed out that it was probably the only pro bono work he ever did.  The bill arrived by return.

We had a saying at work, usually applied to a particularly scurrilous piece of information, that if it’s not true now it will be in six weeks time.  (Followed by “Lets publish it anyway”)  In that spirit and to get my loyal follower(s) a chance to get ahead of the masses I give you my insider tips on upcoming changes to the law, smuggled out of Downing Street by my pal at the Despatch Box.

I have had reason to do a lot of motorway driving in the last week and I was a little surprised to see that what I had imagined was embargoed information was already widely known.  It will soon, possibly within days, be required to tail-gate other vehicles.  The upside of this is that it reminds dozy drivers who go at the speed indicated by the illuminated signs that they should stop irritating other road users, sharpen up and put their feet down. This has been the preferred option of the forward looking British for many years but is henceforth compulsory.

In fact, many of the legal updates do relate to road usage.  Lorries MUST in future travel side by side at no more than 30mph, whatever the speed limit.  There will have to be an exemption for them from the tail-gating rules but only on busy motorways. On other roads they will stay at a maximum, maximum 2 metres behind the car in front.

As soon as the manpower is available all those signs saying “Stay in lane” will be altered to “Change lane as often as humanly possible” – again a practice which is already widespread.  Any use of the indicator prior to moving will be, I hope it goes without saying, strictly verboten.  There is, it seems, a move to omit them in new vehicles as superfluous, like the man with the red flag walking in front.

Some of you, a very few, may have noticed occasional road signs indicating that a lane ahead is closed.  Complicated though this is, you must get your head round that in this instance you DO NOT change lanes, however much opportunity there is to do so, until absolutely the last minute, causing huge tailbacks and enraging drivers who foolishly moved over earlier. Ignorers will face hefty fines.

There is concern that all these alterations will result in chaos but have a little faith.  Look how quickly the public embraced the idea that it is illegal to leave home without a mobile phone and one’s eyes should only leave the screen in exceptional circumstances.  Like ducks to water!  Early adopters have moved on to applying the same rules whenever their car is paused at traffic lights.  A fine opportunity to check and send vital texts and pictures of your breakfast and a cause for congratulation from other drivers who sound their horns in salute as the lights turn red yet again.

Of course time wasting is a cardinal sin in our busy world so the plan is to rush these changes through Parliament without too much debate.  God knows they already have the wholehearted support of the general public, those stalwarts who stop dead at the top of escalators, can’t find their wallet at the checkout and only after boarding a bus following a 30 minute wait realise that the driver will need to see their ticket.

This is not change, people, with its negative connotations; this is improvement.  Let us join hands and move confidently into our glorious future. It’s the law.

… but unfortunately you only die once which is a shame because according to what I see in the newspapers I should be dying of something different every single day and I don’t even read the Daily Mail.  What a bitter blow it will be to science when I succumb to only one cause.

The brighter amongst you will have deduced that the target for this week’s wrath are scientists and to a lesser, but still meaningful extent,  the media that give them the oxygen of publicity.  Obviously all journalists are terminally idle or they would have proper jobs but even they shouldn’t stoop to filling their empty pages with alarmist nonsense gleaned from people in leather-patched jackets and ‘amusing’ kipper ties who should be put firmly back in the laboratory cupboard.  (Except on particularly slow days in, say,  August.  I’m not entirely without feelings.)

They are crying wolf and anyone who has read about the boy who did that knows that in fairly short order people will stop believing anything they say.  After all, and I am going to be a bit stern here, you test tube folk  have been wrong before.

Was it only weeks ago that we were told not to drink more than two glasses of alcohol a day?  Then we were told as a fact to drink as much red wine as we could force down,  (Hardly a challenge but one particular piece of advice that I did choose to follow.) followed practically the next day by a statement that every single glass of wine will shorten you life by months, possibly years.

Readers, this is nonsense.  Complete and utter piffle.  Fake news and, drum roll please, I can prove it.  Yesterday I had lunch with 14 lovely ladies all of whom had worked for many years for a well known news organisation and drunk like the proverbial fishes.  And were they dead?  No, members of the jury, they were not.  Not even one of them.  The oldest amongst us was approaching 80 and if, God forbid, she had dropped dead at the table it could hardly have been labelled a tragically premature passing.  If there was the smallest grain of truth in what Dr Doom was saying we would all have shuffled off at age 14.  Or something.  Maths, like so much else, is not my forte.

So in the interests of accuracy, another new line for me, I want you to take part in an experiment.  Everyone is to consume at least one alcoholic beverage a day for the next week, and let us just see how many have died by the end of it.  I venture the answer will be none.  Now where’s my Nobel prize?  And drink?