One event I regretted missing on my last visit to London was a party at the Polish Club, which has been refurbished and has a new Polish prince as its president and has good Poles and active members such as Ladies Belhaven and Hamilton, both friends of mine, keeping the home fires burning. I have
‘Oscar!’ cried Miss Herd as I arrived. She was standing at the classroom door releasing her charges one by one as the parent, or in my case the grandparent, arrived to escort them safely back to their respective homes. Oscar came solemnly out in his navy Academy sweatshirt carrying his red Fireman Sam lunchbox and
As a rule, I tend not to frequent places where there is a sign on the door saying ‘no sharps’. But I thought I would make an exception for the Eden Project. Surely, I thought, as we walked from the ‘Banana’ car park to the ticket office, they must mean sharps as in penknives, or
Through a stormy July weekend our task was to prevent four feisty grandchildren from murdering or mutilating each other before being returned to their parents, so we gave them £3 each to spend at the local car-boot sale. After two hours, the three girls returned with two teddy bears (one the size of a sheep),
If I haven’t mentioned my poultry for a while, it’s because the subject has been too depressing. I had been very fond of my ducks and chickens until the constant attacks on them by foxes began to harden my heart. I had protected them in every way I could, short of keeping them cooped up
A few years ago, a family friend described my father as being a bit like Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House, by which he meant that he neglected his own family in favour of helping others. By way of proof, he cited the famous occasion when my father abandoned all of us on Christmas Day to
Mark Pardoe MW, Buying Director of Berry Bros. & Rudd, was in charitable mood last week. Not only did he put up a particularly mouth–watering selection of wines, he also agreed to lop a full 15 per cent off the list price. That Mark was positively glowing with bonhomie is thanks to the fact that
This time last year, England’s cricketers were 2-0 up against Australia, two thirds of the way towards their third consecutive series victory in sport’s longest-established international contest. Not quite top of the world, they were nevertheless a good team in the prime of life. The winter before, they had beaten India on their dusty pitches,
Q. I live far away from my brother and his family, but went to stay with them recently for the first time in many years. Having supper was like eating a meal with the starving. Brother, wife and their young teenager hunched down low in order to be nearer to their large plates of stew,
The Chatsworth estate, Derby-shire. I am overwhelmed by marketing literature. I am prostrate. I am weeping. I am staying in one of the Duke of Devonshire’s barns, renovated into a one-bedroom ‘cottage’ with no interior doors. Maybe it was home to a horse once, maybe not; I do not know. I am a short walk
My husband is constantly amused by talk of patient autonomy — for people who want to have a limb lopped off to solve their feeling of body dysmorphia and so on. I suppose he is amused because that is his nature, rather than that these things are inherently funny. In any case, as I have
I am your memories. They are not me. So it feels strange to be remembered by These relics of my personality. Although you mourn me, is it really me You mourn, or thoughts of me that make you cry? I am your memories. They are not me. Ridiculous, such immortality! To live like this, to
