Not even lunchtime and already I’ve had phone calls demanding to know where the blog is. Never mind the blog people, it is nothing short of a miracle that I’m here at all, given the week I’ve had. To give you a small idea my legal advisor tried to confiscate my iPad charger on Thursday for fear that I would use it to garrotte a fiercely enthusiastic young lawyer who thought the secret of success was to scatter the courtroom with the hind legs of exhausted donkeys. Novice and seriously mistaken idea.
An up side of the week was lunch with the girls when we were discussing international affairs over our third bottle of wine – how long can starters take? – and NOT Brad and Angelina, thank you. We are dead highbrow. Conversation naturally turned to the plight of our sisters in the Middle East and my thoughts were with the Afghani girl who has just started dating Useless the Elder. Hasn’t she suffered enough for one lifetime?
A solution to the Gordian knot that is Syria having eluded us we debated instead the merits of the burka with particular reference to Bad Hair Days and Upper Lip Waxing when in a Damascene moment I was struck by an idea of complete and utter brilliance. And not for the first time.
‘A convent!’ I announced to the ladies, most of the other luncheon diners having left as it began to get dark, ‘A convent is the way forward!’.
What excitement this caused for it seemed we were all of the same mind.
Nothing modern – no plain clothes, flat shoes or good works in Africa but something more traditional. Think ‘Call the Midwife’ and their habits, but possibly not in black and white. Very unforgiving on the more mature complexion; more a soft ivory with charcoal grey – and naturally none of those patriarchal restrictions of poverty, chastity and obedience. This isn’t the Middle Ages for Heavens sake. And no religious element. That way lies nothing but trouble as history clearly shows.
Admission to the convent will be based on whether we like you or not and a staunch addiction to the Archers. We will fall quiet twice a day, at 1402 and 1902 and for a full hour on Sunday’s. If this needs explaining consider yourself rejected.
The notion of a silent order was unanimously vetoed.
Our watchword will be humility, a look we practiced over the puddings although it’s a tricky one to master without a wimple and subtle lighting.
So, gentle readers, salute ‘The Humble Little Sisters of Strawberry/ Ambridge’
I may abandon the title Lady Kingston and henceforth be known simply as Mother Superior. Amen to that.

This was the slogan that was supposed to deter young folk from taking drugs but figures show it proved to be a spectacular failure, so many choosing the alternative of ‘Just say yes’ instead, so I am taking the liberty of using it for my own fight against addiction.
I refer to the curse of the mobile phone.
Somebody berated me the other day for not answering my mobile and was aghast to discover that when in my own home, where each floor is equipped with what we old school types refer to as a telephone or ‘land line’I do not feel the need to carry a portable communications device around with me. And indeed, how could I, given that I am always already struggling under the weight of a tray of used crockery, a pile of ironing or a vacuum cleaner? What carefree lives do some people live that they run up and down stairs with empty hands?
This will admittedly prove useful in later life when all these youngsters are crippled with arthritis from their constant texting and gone blind from staring at a tiny screen. Mobile in one hand, guide dog in the other.
Who hasn’t travelled in a train carriage where every single person has their head bowed in prayer over their beloved device? I had lunch this week with six ladies and NOT ONCE did we find it necessary to take a photo of ourselves or our food, or text someone the good news that we were still alive, even though this is never a given at our age obviously. I actually heard that people are asking to be buried with their phones. Sweetie, not even the iPhone 7 will get through to where you’re going although on the plus side if you’re buried with one of those exploding Samsungs it will save on cremation costs.
And on a morbid front it is a FACT that more people now die on British roads from accidents caused by phone usage than by alcohol. Think about it.
My deepest disapproval is directed at women who are glued to their phones when they are with their small children. Never mind that they wander witlessly into traffic, so immersed are they, but the poor baby wouldn’t even be able to,shout for help. Probably the only language Junior has ever master is ‘Yes’, ‘No!!’ and ‘OMG!!!!!’ Just don’t come whining to me when you can’t get them to,do their homework or go to bed because they’re too busy on their tablets.
So that’s my rant for the week but let me not leave you downhearted. There is positive news but, without giving too much of a clue, I shall have to draw a veil over it for a couple of weeks.
Get off the phone readers and watch this space.

I’ve been in prison this week – it was always on the cards you’re thinking – and not for the first time, it must be admitted. My latest incarceration was at Reading Prison, made famous by Oscar Wilde after he served 2 years there for his relationship with Bosie, the son of the Marquess of Queensbury and wrote De Profundis to pass the time. A notoriously bonkers family, my old pal Horace Walpole lived near the Queensburys and remarked gratefully ‘Thank God the Thames is between us’. Not close friends then?
Other visitors, presumably newer to being inside than yours truly, were aghast at the Victorian conditions but I wondered if they realised that it was still being used until three years ago and not much had changed in the intervening century. The cells are still dark and tiny and often contained two inmates but at least latterly they weren’t banged up for 23 hours a day with only the Bible and a Prayer book for entertainment. The one hour a day out of the cells was spent in the chapel, doubtless listening to a sermon. And second prize? Unsurprisingly 10% did not pass Go and collect £200 but went straight on to lunatic asylums.
My first prison visit – not a sleepover, thank you, – was to a large London establishment known locally as ‘The Scrubs’ and it was quite an eye-opener. People of the Daily Mail persuasion imagine something like a Premier Inn with a life of idle luxury spent watching the Jeremy Kyle show and waiting for the drone to deliver your drugs. And again, second prize? Hard to think of anything that would rocket me towards Bedlam any faster. In fact televisions are used as a form of control in the absence of staff who, not unreasonably, expect to be paid something resembling a living wage for their troubles. Its removal is a powerful sanction, given that sending them to their rooms isn’t much of a threat. Guess how many people are typically guarding 200 prisoners? 4. As in less than five and more than three, not very good odds I imagine if they decide one morning NOT to co-operate.
Reading has been opened as a pop-up art gallery and is well worth a visit. Got great reviews. No longed used as a prison for reasons that remain a mystery it is a listed building with Henry 1 possibly buried under the car park – a form of regal internment that’s turning into quite a trend – so no-one knows quite what to do with it.
Pop down there and let me have your ideas on a postcard. Winner announced next week.

Those of you who keep up with my blog and TripAdvisor postings (60,000 devoted followers at the last count) will know that I have been rocketing about the country this summer exploring the hidden treasures – or not – of our Sceptred Isle.
I have already delighted you with my trips of Broadstairs and Sarfend but I have also ventured to Winchelsea and – a drum roll here methinks – Skegness! My hotel of choice near Rye, the very excellent Gallivant, being full I was forced to stay at somewhere called The Lodge. To give you some idea of how dreadful it was check out my review entitled ‘Step aside Basil Fawlty’. Sidney at the Lodge left Basil as far behind as Usain Bolt’s challengers.
Next stop, and I know your brows are knotted already, if Botox doesn’t prevent all movement, was Skegness. To put you out of your misery a girlfriend of mine has moved there to be near to her recently widowed mother and has duly purchased a four-bedroom house in a cul-de-sac leading to the beach for £160,000. And that’s not a typo with a zero missing. It is approximately half of what you would pay for a one bedroom flat in Richmond. Short lease. Needs updating.
There may be unrelenting miles of caravan parks to the north of Skeggie with blatantly inaccurate names like Honeysuckle Farm and Cherry Blossom Acres, instead of the more descriptive Gulag, No. 1 – 50, but go south (No, not as far as London) to the wild life sanctuary and it is actually very nice.
Needless to say there is NOWHERE even remotely nice to dine, unless you are a devotee of the full English Breakfast three times a day, except for one Italian eaterie in a rather grubby lean to in a car park. The maitre’d, blessed with almost as little charm as Sidneyfrom Sussex, looked incredulous when I asked for a table.
‘People book up to a week in advance to get in here’ he growled.
‘Bit like the Chiltern Firehouse?’was my wasted riposte, making a mental note to ask Quintessentially to sort it for me next time.
All of which has at least taken my mind off the house building next door. The other day I noticed that the builders were replacing the fence between our houses and in an ill-advised quip I ask them to build a chalet for my dustbins with any surplus wood. Novice mistake. In a rather sweet attempt to curry favour they had built an edifice that Beidi would have been proud of. All I need is a few goats and some cow bells. Toblerone anyone?

With what fondness do I look back to August, the best month by a distance for your city dweller. The streets, or more accurately, the roads have emptied and unless you choose to spend the day outside Buckingham Palce or Madame Tussards (Spot the Freudian connection) you need never see a tourist or almost anyone else.
Added to which delights my son and heirs decamped to Nice and Barcelona respectively so I no longer had to decant the gin into fabric softener bottles and the fridge stayed fully stocked for days on end.
And then there was the Olympics. Now I am not normally a fan of sporting activities and certainly not if it involves wearing Lycra but a friend came over one night and whilst working our way through a bottle of Mothers Ruin (Incidentslly in a record beating time) we actually got quite excited about the cycling. By the time we ran out of tonic there was even wild talk of getting the four ladies from the pub quiz team to train for Tokyo.
Obviously this plan was ditched next morning faster than the bottle into the neighbour’s recycling bin and in a spirit of embracing reality I decided the time had come to sell my own bicycle – one lady owner,never raced or rallied, the bike anyway, and if I am brutally honest, only ridden twice.
Unfortunately the buyer lived somewhere called Southend and thinking logically that London boasts a West and an East End, and I imagined it must therefore be one of those places south of the river that one has never visited. Obviously. So very wrong. It turns out to be – dramatic pause – in Essex.
I decided that nothing else would do but to hire a white van,the better to blend in with the natives. I also took Useless the Younger with me as he has a tattoo on his arm which he dangled out of the window to lend us a little street cred. Fashion followers will note that I was sporting site specific white sling back stilettos and a spray tan. Add to the mix a pair of furry dice and a folded copy of the Daily Express on the dashboard and we were ready for anything.
Regular reader(s) will know that I have driven a great many cars over the last 30 years but a White Van turns out to be The Best Thing Ever. Traffic just parts before you like the Red Sea. So when Mr Bolt was looking for inspiration in preparation for his attempt for three more gold medals he merely looked East and feasted his eyes on the vision of Lady K in her white chariot outrunning the field by miles.
I note that since my piece on Canvey a Island the residents of Stamford Hill have decided to decamp there en masse. Perhaps I can work the same magic on Sarfend. Perhaps Usain will retire there.

What, you may have asked yourself, possibly on more than one occasion, does Lady Kingston have in common with Derek Jarman?
Very little, you might imagine, what with him being male, gay, talented and dead. But there is something. We both have a deep love of Dungerness, it being, by a distance of several million miles, my favourite place in the world and the home of my ancestors for over a thousand years.
If you know anything at all about the place it is probably a vague memory of it being the home of two enormous nuclear power stations which loom menacingly over the world’s biggest shingle beach. Not to everyone’s taste, I grant you, but on the up side the fish do glow very prettily in the dark.
And it was in the spirit of Brexit and embracing the more unusual parts of our island that I decided to visit Canvey Island which bears the attractively painted claim to be the Lourdes of England.
I had imagined it would resemble the ‘valley of ashes’ town in Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, overlooked by the baleful eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg and the perfect English Bank Holiday destination.
The day dawned disappointingly dry. I wanted lashing rain, sodden, flapping deck chairs, grizzling toddlers, bewildered pensioners sheltering in bus stops and wild gusts of wind snatching copies of the Daily Express out of frozen hands. In short, the full British holiday experience.
Canvey Island turned out to be ever so slightly lacking – no surprise there then.
No Dr. Eckleberg sign, or even a sign of Dr. Feelgood, the most famous local citizen. It was not really that industrial, more drearily suburban and deserted, the inhabitants probably sunning themselves in their Tuscan palazzos or shooting grouse on a Scottish moor.
I made the most of the limited opportunities, getting fish and chips and a parking ticket and posed beneath the painted sign overlooking the fetid, oily water and thinking of England.
I like a slogan. I once had my picture taken in Bilbao by a man who had been spray painting a sign demanding Basque independence. I held the can and looked revolutionary which earned me several brownie points from No. 1 Son who is a committed supporter of oppressed minorities. (Except mothers). He claims to have been arrested by the Spanish police once when promoting the Basque cause but given I had no phone calls from them begging me to take him back, I am a little sceptical.
Next week I reveal how my trip to Southend inspired Usain Bolt and my progress through the country will take me to Skegness. Does it get any better?

It has been drawn to my attention that people (picky women) don’t think of me as a feminist and clearly I don’t look like one at first sight, or hopefully second or third sight, not fitting the classic stereotype – a crew cut, pipe smoking creature in baggy dungarees, possibly bearded, certainly unshaven. There is very little chance of my lovely La Perla underwear being flung onto a bonfire except in the event of an urgent need for ready cash from an insurance company.
Years at ITN, home of the woman-with-attitude, have left me with an ability to speak up for myself and even in these modern times there are still occasions when a chauvinist needs a swift verbal slap by way of a reminder. Not necessary if you happen to have a Kalashnikov to hand, of course.
I was once on my way to compete in the National Sudoku finals (which I will confess reluctantly that I didn’t win and which I mention merely to establish that I am not entirely brainless) when the man in the next parking space to me said sharply ‘Mind you don’t bump my car when you open your door’.
‘Yes sir’ I said, ‘I can see how easily I might be tempted to recklessly bash the door of my gleaming new convertible against the rust bucket that is your 20 year old Nissan and obviously you would have said the same thing had I been a tattooed van driver.’ I don’t think so.
Venturing into the steaming hell that is the London Underground system I then attempted to buy a ticket using a credit card. ‘Oh the sweet optimism of this woman’ is doubtless what you’re thinking but on seeing my failure to persuade the wretched machine to part with a ticket the man behind me in the queue, short in stature and patience, said ‘You bloody stupid woman’, pushed past me and started punching the buttons. Fixing him with a gaze the steeliness of which will have hopefully left him both impotent and sterile, I suggested to him that unless his remark has been a pathetic stab at humour, which it clearly was not, I was minded to bring his behaviour to the attention of a nearby policeman. ‘After all’ I reasoned, ‘You’d hardly expect to get away with saying ‘stupid black’ would you?’
So gentlemen of the world, take note. By and large we ladies don’t like being told what to do. If we want to sport a burkini on the beach we will. Or not, as the fancy takes us. And we will say so.

How many times, dear reader, have you turned to ladykingstonlives and searched in vain for cookery tips or gardening advice? To address those longings for a few wise words from the most experienced of women, and in order to give myself a week off, I shall reproduce my Agony Aunt column from the ITN newsletter but on reflection I now see that you could replace ITN with the name of virtually any organisation and the words will still ring true.

Dear Agony Alex,
Apparently I worked at ITN for many years but worryingly in the sober light of retirement, can recall almost nothing that happened. A. Hack

Dear Mr Hack,
Luckily nor can anyone else but I will rummage through my carefully preserved collection of negatives (aka my pension pot) to see if I can spot you in any of them.

Dear Agony Alex,
Having left ITN I am now at a loss as to fill the empty days. Any advice?
Loose End

Dear Loose,
Are you completely sure that you ever worked at ITN? (See previous letter). Personally I can think of nowhere else on earth, except possibly a lifetime spent in local government, which offered a better preparation for retirement: days of hanging around, only a few befuddled folk to talk to and most afternoons lost in a vague haze. You should have paid more attention.

Dear Agony Alex,
During my time at ITN my name has never been linked with anyone of either gender in a scandalous manner. Am I impossibly dull?

Dear Dull,
Apparently so. I cannot recall any other person of whom the same could be said. However, I will take this opportunity to ask for volunteers who would not object to being linked to you to step forward, if only out of pity.

I hope these brief examples of my caring and compassionate approach will encourage more of you to turn to me for guidance – except for the person who is inundating me with letters written on lined paper in green ink. I know who you are.

Finally the winter winds have abated and the Mercury has crept above the blue zone. A hosepipe ban can only be days, possibly hours away and there is the slimmest of chances that the central heating can go off, though not in the evenings, obviously.
It is harvest time on the Kingston estate and not only must fruit and vegetables be picked but also bottled, pickled or frozen. Besides anything else this involves a polar-style trek into the depths of the deep freeze to turf out all the stuff that went in last year, dozens of bags of rhubarb or red cabbage – who has time to label? – which has lingered there for months, as overlooked as a Pitbull puppy at a cats’ rescue centre.
The kitchen has become a dark, satanic mill of activity, sugary steam rising from the pulsating preserving pans thicker than smoke in a newsroom.
Added to which I am, as my hero Horace once put it “again got into the hands of builders”. Like all completely normal women I am possessed at least once a year, depending on the levels of medication, to re-vamp the house. Furniture which has stood happily in one place for weeks on end must be moved, renovated or got rid of.
I tend to feel this way about quite a lot of things, now I come to think about it. I once had a blitz that involved radiator placement but this time it is walls. I have never liked the one between the hall and the dining room and cannot now imagine how I was ever persuaded to agree to its construction. All that stood between me and happiness was the 18 weeks required by the wretched glass company to build three, simple folding panels but this at least gave me time to find a builder.
Needless to say the two English firms offered the work in a post-Brexian spirit didn’t get round to organising a quote by the time that the Latvian workers had finished. And while I was at it I had the front windows altered ever so slightly. What was going through my mind when they were installed?
Standing over my bubbling pans gave me any amount of time to view the garden from a previously undiscovered angle – through the kitchen window – and I realise that a total replant is required before my lunch party next week if it is not to be social death. And I’ve had to go to Southend. Does it sound like I’ve got a moment to write anything this week?