It was a rainy morning on Friday when I woke up warm as toast in a small castle in Northumberland, surrounded on all sides as far as the eye could see by the immaculate, formal gardens still dancing under the weight of the winter sky and beyond them racing-green moorland stretching to infinity and eternity in all directions.
I’d brought my gun and my guitar and we’d all been up singing until the small hours, singing all the songs I could remember. Well, there were a few sore heads at the breakfast table but the atmosphere was jocular, festive. Most of the guests had known each other for many years and it was an extremely well-staffed, well-run house. Cooks in the kitchen and boys in the bootroom; porridge and papers, coffee and cigarettes; an English breakfast banquet.
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