Diary – 10 February 2007

Since my two children have dispersed to Hollywood and gap-year Sydney, I spend a great deal of time at home with the individual who needs me most: my house — mean, moody, magnificent, prone to upsets if left. Its tanks conveniently overflowed when we went away to Los Angeles at Christmas. That’ll show me. Today yet another painter came to inspect the damage and I thought I heard the pipes gurgle a little, as if with laughter. This house used to be the Chinese military attaché’s, and we still receive letters trying to persuade us to buy used fighter planes. Once we had an invitation to a party on a Thames river cruise to discuss buying submarines, but I didn’t think I’d get away with turning up and getting out my cheque book. In the attic we discovered a menacing picture of Mao, and the neighbours relate stories of the lawn being mowed by a row of Chinese in suits, one pushing the mower, the others walking beside him in a regi-mented row in the spirit of old communism.