Diary 2006

Rob

Rob came at 14:30, bang on time as usual. He and I had met in the hospital. I was there with "complications secondary to adhesions" as the medics delight in putting it. He was there with excruciating pain to his pancreas (and they never did discover why). My mother arrived in the ward accompanied by Chris Bunker, whom she knows and who also happens to be my dermatologist. He was coming to the ward to see his "personal trainer" - one Rob Burr; since when Rob has been personally training me. Rob finds muscles. Then he stretches them and works them and ties them up and, slowly, you recover and get better and stronger. What's your excuse?

8th March 2006

Depression

I had a serious and ferocious disagreement with wife and mother of two about aspects of school admin. I won't go in to the details (the utter necessity, from my point of view, and the complete waste of time, from hers) but she made it clear that it was her school and if I didn't like it, tough. The only interesting aspect of this altercation was the effect it had on me. I went from equanimity to somewhere dark and dismal, full of self-loathing and the acute recognition that I am far from perfect and have never been able to provide properly, in financial terms, for my family. My nephew, Jack, has had a few episodes of depression and I remember his saying, during one of them, that he couldn't imagine not feeling like that. In my case, a flash of humour, a grab for my testicles and an offer of reconciliation restored my equilibrium, but for others, more deeply afflicted, it must be a desperate and hopeless place to be

8th March 2006

One in three

If we take Alan Clark to heart ("a day that goes unrecorded is a day that’s disappeared"), then my life is almost non-existent - must do better. I was startled, listening to Today this morning to hear the Probation Boards Association's chief executive Martin Wargent say: "one man in three in this country has a significant criminal conviction". I suppose if that is the average, then cities in the UK contain an even higher percentage of convicted criminals. This sort of information only serves to reinforce my prejudice that if you open your car boot (in a London street), and leave your car unattended, the next person to pass by will steal something from it - not sometime during the day something might get stolen but the ghastly inevitability of it being the very next person. And then you long for Swiss mountain tops, and alpine villages, and some predictability, all of which sends Mrs Marrian screaming to the top of the number 19 bus, to which she is addicted

And while we're on gloomy subjects, what is to be made of this: a national identity card scheme will be a "present" to terrorists, criminal gangs and foreign spies, one of Britain's most respected former intelligence agents has told ministers. The warning from Daphne Park, who served for 30 years as a senior controller for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, came as the parliamentary power struggle over the identity cards bill dragged on

21st March 2006

4 x 4

It's Budget Day. Gordon Brown has announced an extra £30 (or thereabouts) road tax for Chelsea tractors - those hideous, aggressive and completely inappropriate (for London streets) trucks that have become so fashionable. £30 is laughable. £1000 would be more like it; strict enforcement of the parking regulations whereby the wheels have to be within the white lines would be even better because in our little street those monsters don't actually fit. I wonder whether it's a fear thing. It would be interesting to discover the correlation between those who drive such gruesome vehicles and those who shun the MMR vaccine.

Younger daughter says diaries should be written in a stream of consciousness frame of mind. Don't think just write; better to write something every day than trust in wise and perceptive thoughts once a month

22nd March 2006

TV licence

Difficult to summon up the energy to write anything when you feel ill... We spent four and a half hours getting back from Oxford yesterday - a journey that normally takes one and a half hours. There's bugger all you can do when at a standstill on a three lane motorway except go for a pee every so often (considerably less easy for the women). The SUV in front of us had a television screen for the rear passengers, which either keeps the brats quiet or sends them to sleep depending on the tediousness of it. We took great delight in removing the TV aerial from our cottage and filling up the book shelves and CD racks. The TV licensing department was close to having a coronary. I wrote them one letter advising them that we no longer had a telly and would not be renewing the licence and must have had a dozen back, each one promising visits by officials, inspectors, enforcers et al none of which occurred of course. I would have been delighted to discuss the finer points of TV reception using a clandestine TV hidden in the attic and situated in a cottage with no aerial and in a dip such that the old aerial never managed it if there was more than a wisp of cloud about but alas...

27th March 2006

Pond planting day

The re-flowering of Middle Lodge continues apace; the internal painting is finished (although the carpets are still to be replaced); the wood burning stove refurbished; more rubbish than you would have thought possible in such a small place taken away in skips; new oven and hob, new Marmoleum floors; new pergola (or loggia as the builder grandly called it); new pond (see below) and a deer fence. I did once get a letter published in The Times in response to other letters from gardeners bemoaning the damage that deer were doing to their gardens. I suggested that many would give their eye teeth to have a deer or two at the bottom of their garden but I have to say that my letter was written from the deer-free zone of Chelsea and I am now considerably the wiser as to the damage that the horrid Muntjac can inflict on a garden. Don't even think of going to the local nurseries because all you end up with is expensive deer food. No longer! The little brutes gaze longingly through the fence at the newly bought roses and "path of true love" goodies and we gaze exultantly back

The pond was dug over Christmas, by me and a hired JCB. It's rectangular, golden mean in shape, 1.25m deep, edged with Indian stone (which does indeed come all the way from India) some of which displays pretty fern fossils. The big conundrum was what to do about plants. You can't put them at the bottom of a 1.25m deep pond and expect them to reach the surface! The wire soap holder that straddles the bath came to my rescue. I had three metal plant hangers made up at Radcot Armoured Components, two for marginals and a deeper one for lillies. They slot in under the coping stones and suspend the plants at just the right depth.

Between the pond and the wall of the house is a concrete area. I had originally intended to put several large earthenware pots there filled with suitable plants. However, browsing through the RHS encyclopaedia of plants, I came across the "water garden in a barrel" idea. So I bought five wooden barrels, filled them with water (beating the hosepipe ban by a day) and bought a large pond basket for each one.

Fifteen baskets were lovingly filled with a wide variety of aquatic plants, lowered into place in pond and barrel and now we wait

The old pond is a mess. Surrounded by trees, it is slowly filling up with leaves and in due course will revert to being a bog. I'm hoping that Iris pseudacorus, Butomus umbellatus, Presula cervina and Gunnera manicata will fill the thing up and give it some mystery

We took Lupita (life coach extraordinaire) to the pub in the evening. She promptly drank a pint of draught Guiness. Mrs Marrian's abstemious mineral water looked even more abstemious than usual. Lupita is so pretty and sexy that just being in the same county breathes life into you

1st April 2006

Dangerous food

Walking back from Waitrose takes me past the fuck shop, whose profits have halved - oh schadenfreude! What ugly people they must be, those that run that company

Jocelyn and Ela come to supper. What is it that dictates that you see your friends in inverse proportion to the amount that you like them? We last saw Jocelyn four years ago. This is madness. She came then with her son Freddie and we ate Cantonese Hotpot - what the Swiss call Fondue Chinoise. You have to be careful you don't mix the cooked and raw ingredients. "I love dangerous food", said Freddie. So, whenever we eat this dish, we talk about dangerous food and remember him. In the intervening years he's given up acting, unable to resist the music bubbling out of him. Now he's a singer songwriter. Ela on the other hand is a teacher, but giving up in July. Why I can't remember; maybe her fury at constantly being provided with 11 year olds who can neither read nor write has contributed.

5th April 2006

Iffy reception

Back at Middle Lodge; in fact we came down last night. Skiving off on a Friday doesn't stop my office from putting clients through to my mobile all day. Discussing the finer points of networking while trying to make sense of the Burford Garden Company's range of plants and trees is a new experience and when the going gets tough the reception can suddenly become awfully iffy

7th April 2006

Lazy writing

Went to see "Rainbow Kiss" at the Royal Court. My God, you need to be careful when you go to this theatre. I once went to see a play called "Plasticine". This was a nasty, dirty little play; a thoroughly unpleasant experience; in fact I was ill for two weeks afterwards such was its effect on me. The only thing interesting about it was the seating, or lack of it; there was none. The audience wandered about the stage trying not to look self-conscious and rushing out of the way whenever the actors decided they wanted to use that bit of the floor space. With "Rainbow Kiss", I had no problems with the soft porn beginning but a 6'4" thug, breaking down the door with a large axe, and then using a stanley knife (or what the Americans call a box cutter) to practise his art on the cheek of the hapless and helpless victim I could do without. It's very easy to get a reaction from an audience using such methods but is it lazy writing?

7th April

Special plants

I've been looking for a while for a Tropaeolum speciosum (flame flower). Like Clematis viticella (suggested by Diana Ross), this needs its roots in shade so will go on the north side of the wall bordering the new pond at Middle Lodge and roar over the top like the Zulus at Rorke's Drift before mingling with the wall trained shrubs on the other side. I'm told Tropaeolum is difficult and unpredictable. Through RHS Plant Finder, I've found a supplier, about 40 miles away who's got two. I take them both; if one fails, maybe the other will thrive. I also buy 60 unusual plants for "the path of true love", being restored to its former glory before the Middle Lodge dark decade and a half destroyed it. I give Derry Watkins, who runs Special Plants, a completely free hand in recommending a selection for the path. At one point, she turns to me and says "This is fun". Indeed it is, and what's even more satisfying is that the wretched Muntjac can't get anywhere near those juicy leaves!

15th April 2006

Bad back

I hurt my back 10 days ago - doing nothing, just riddling the stove in the most half-hearted way. As I stood up I knew I was in trouble. It's the muscle spasms that really hurt. Lift your little finger and suddenly your entire trunk is rigid with pain. Nothing for it but to sit in an armchair and wait for it to get better, which it does. A friend recommended a back person ("best I've come across"). She came today, massaged me and charged £85 - ouch! No doubt about it, the back feels freer and less painful but only until the effect of the massage (increased blood supply to the muscles) wears off. Then it's back to square one (see here for a possible explanation as to where this phrase originated). Elder daughter is militant about physiotherapy - only sensible way of dealing with back pain, she says. I have succumbed and booked an appointment with the Spinal and Physiotherapy clinic recommended by Rob Burr

18th April 2006

Miracles

Went to see Peter Shaffer's Royal Hunt of The Sun at the National ("Don't think we are merely going to destroy his people and lift their wealth. We are going to take from them what they don't value, and give them instead the priceless mercy of heaven. He who helps me lift this dark man into light I absolve of all crimes he ever committed"). Perhaps when the National did this at the Old Vic in 1964 it lived up to its promise, and promise it has. But this was disappointing and flat; six out of ten. Even so, strange how one longs for the Inca King to resurrect himself as the morning sun illuminates his executed body.  But miracles? Do they ever happen? Have they ever happened? Long, long ago, they happened; dead prophets are more believable than live prophets; old miracles more believable than new miracles. But shine the forensic light of logic, evidence and enquiry and one ends up being disappointed. That is not to say that I am not a sucker for the supernatural, for God in all his glory and, particularly, for Jesus. In fact I dragged my whole family into a cult for twelve years because the idea of its leader being the Adi Shakti, the Holy Ghost satisfied a dormant spiritual need. But, in the end, I couldn't maintain the belief so we left, easing our way out of the acquired conditionings. We met some truly good people, encountered considerable chaos, put up with too much deception, parted with some money (but not an unreasonable nor an unwilling amount) and remain with one of the more sublime moments of our lives existing within the utter silence and reverence of Her entry into the pendle at our first puja

20th April 2006

Path of true love

After only a week the Path of True Love is full of weeds. But nothing can stop me now. This little, meandering, stone trail epitomizes the health and vigour of Middle Lodge. With David Gilmour on the MP3 player (note: iRiver not iPod), each weed comes out by hand, meditative and cathartic, and it doesn't take long. The sun is warm on my back

22nd April 2006

Dignity

My first visit to the Spinal and Physiotherapy Clinic. This place appears entirely staffed by "down under" people, all young and fit, with not a bad back among them (or at least not one they'll admit to) - plenty of rivalry between the Oz and NZ sets though. Rod puts me into any number of undignified positions, and I curse elder daughter through all of them

24th April 2006

Gotterdammerung

Mrs Marrian decides that six and a half hours of Gotterdammerung is more than her sciatica can bear - a condition that is eating money and time ("money and pain, pain, pain" - McCabe and Mrs Miller - now that was a movie) at £85 a shot with "the best there is" back person, an acupuncture person, a doctor, and now, at last and with much the best chance of success, Rod (elder daughter preens herself). So mother-in-law steps bravely up. And six and a half hours it is - beginning at 16:00 and finishing at 22:30. It's very curious; for me the evening was stunning. Then, a few days later, you read a less than glowing review which, apart from general agreement on the weakness of Siegfried's voice, cites a mass of stuff to do with the production all of which had completely passed me by. I feel fortunate that my opera-going experience still allows me to be thrilled rather than disappointed. Younger daughter goes well beyond the call of duty by pitching up at 22:30 in her car to give us a lift home

27th April 2006

Path of thyme

May day bank holiday which is why we're still at Middle Lodge. To complement the Path of True Love, the Path of Thyme has now been planted with 12 varieties of thyme. Mother-in-law keeps telling me how important it is to tread on the plants so that we can smell the fragrance. I keep telling her that it is really, really important not to tread on my newly planted thyme plants. I think I'm in the ascendancy at the moment but I'm not sure for how long

1st May 2006

Money flow

This is the third time I've seen Rod, and now I have to see Georgina, which isn't at all what I had in mind. The idea was that a single visit would allow Rob (my exercise chap, in case you're losing the plot here) to adjust his exercise routines appropriately. As it is, I've entered a seemingly endless cycle of both Rod and Rob, liberally interspersed with Georgina and Suzie. This has got to stop

2nd May 2006

Rocky Horror Show

Went to "Tribute to the Rocky Horror Show" at the Royal Court. The evening was in aid of Amnesty International with all the performers giving their time for free. I'm a bit of a Rocky Horror nut having seen it (the play, not the film) 46 times (don't ask - never on my own and never in drag) so attendance was going to be essential.

"Do you have any tickets left for the Rocky Horror tribute?"
"Let me give you the prices - um, £350"
"Per seat!"
"Yes. We've got cheaper ones"
"OK, how much?"
"£300"

Well, you could see where this was going. I finally weedled out of her that the cheapest seats were £50. On the night, the programme cost a tenner and Mrs Marrian promptly lost it (left it in the bar where it was snapped up by someone with no respect for other people's property). She did however make up for it by dancing manically during the encore, unlike those in drag, fishnets, thongs and less, who danced and mimed all the way through

3rd May 2006

Voysey Inheritance

The Voysey Inheritance at the National. Excellent, thoroughly enjoyed it

4th May 2006

Overwhelming

The Overwhelming at the Cottesloe. The acting at the National is always superb; rarely are you looking at actors; characters are what you see. Younger daughter has a friend who's recently finished at LAMDA and is seeking work. I remember telling her when she was in her early teens that for years I never knew what Olivier looked like. Every time I saw him, whether in film or on stage he was so different. It wasn't Olivier playing a part; it was Othello or Henry or whatever. Her eyes were shining as I said this and I knew I was looking at an actress.

An interesting assertion (if true) came out of this play, to do with the US troops in Somalia before Clinton pulled them out. 18 Americans died, with 90 UN troops losing their lives trying to protect them - each UN soldier having his penis cut off and placed in his mouth

15th May 2006

Sackler Crossing

A shortage of parking places at Victoria Gate there was not. I'd expected it to be difficult but, presumably because the gardens were closed, it was easy. We'd come to Kew for the opening of the Sackler Crossing, John Pawson's elegant and beautiful walkway across the lake.

There was champagne and conversation and a train of little dinky carriages to take us to the crossing but we decided to walk ahead of time. Kew Gardens is powerfully magical under ordinary circumstances but when you are entirely alone, walking past, and under, trees of age, majesty and beauty, it becomes something very special indeed.

Finally we came upon it, this walk upon the water, raised up higher than I’d expected (but maybe the lake was low), guarded each end so that no footprints would spoil the effect for Dr Sackler, coming for the first time to see the fruits of his generosity. The thin, horizontal, black granite segments that make up the walkway were wet with rain, and the panelled bronze sides dull in the grey evening light. And then a remarkable thing happened: the dignitaries arrived and began to walk on the bridge, and, as they did, drops of water fell from granite to lake, splashing and sparkling and giving life to the utterly still surface below; and the sun came out, and then we saw, we knew, that the bronze sides were not dull but gloriously golden, shimmering as we moved to get a better view. An hour earlier nobody would have accepted money on the sun appearing but here it was shining and showing off a subtle and inspiring piece of architecture

We left before the speeches, because we had things to do, and hitched a ride to the gate in our very own dinky train. The driver took great delight in providing us with a commentary as we passed points of interest, referring to us "lady and gentleman"

As a reminder that all is not golden we found our car scraped with several hundred pounds worth of damage ( and no note, natch), and, yes, we were properly parked and, no, the road was not the least bit narrow

See here for more details about the crossing

16th May 2006

Four million pounds and no leg room

Back to the physio clinic. I've got rid of Rod, I've got rid of Georgina, just Suzie to go, and an hour with her to plot my exit from this one way revenue stream.

Placido thrilled us as Cyrano at the ROH in the evening. On those occasions when I don't get an aisle seat I sit, hunched and cramped, twisting from side to side trying to suppress less than charitable thoughts about ROH management. They spent four million quid refurbishing the place and still managed to produce seats that detract from, rather than add to, the enjoyment of the evening. Compare and contrast with the Olivier - oh yes

17th May 2006

Stinky water barrels

Can't get away from it, the water barrels are beginning to smell. They are crawling with mosquito larvae and miscellaneous worms. I flush them with clean water and the whole area stinks like a sewer

20th May 2006

Stinky water barrels (again)

I flush the barrels again and long for the plants to get to grips with the problem. Their growth is slow at best. Reluctantly, I'm being forced to consider filtering)

27th May 2006

Market Boy

Market Boy at The National: an airborne, bright blue Maggie Thatcher provides much amusement

1st June 2006

Water barrel filtration

How am I going to filter these damn barrels? They can't go on stinking the way they do. After much thought, I decide to raise them on stilts and have water cascade from one to the other. This is easier said than done as whatever I use to channel the water will have to be a) aesthetically pleasing and b) fixed firmly to the edge of the barrel without leaking. No garden centre anywhere close has anything remotely suitable so after a bit of googling I discover Japanese Garden Supplies who sell me an 8' 120mm bamboo pole. I can cut short sections in half lengthways to create channels and glue them into semi-circular cutouts on the edge of each barrel

3rd June 2006

Joy and gratitude

The bamboo pole arrives. It is enormous and quite the most unusual delivery the driver has ever made (so he tells me). The forests that produce such thick stems must be remarkable places

Back to the physio clinic for a final session with Suzie and Rob. They have an ultrasound device that allows you to look at which muscles do what during various exercises - mostly involving the pelvic floor (the only reason I know anything about my pelvic floor is because to show solidarity with Mrs Marrian 26 years ago I used to join in with her exercises at the NCT classes that we went to). The trick is to move the lower abdominals while leaving the upper ones stationery. The ultrasound allows you to experiment with the force of the pelvic floor exercise until you achieve just the right strength to get Suzie showering you with praise (I bet she does that to all the boys)

In the evening we go to see Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris in concert together at Wembley Arena. The place is only three-quarters full. I don't understand that. This is the best concert I have seen in the last decade. Their joint album, All the Roadrunning, is stunning. I long to tell the musicians who thrill me, move me, provoke me just how much they mean to me, how much their music inspires me, comforts me and even reminds me, from time to time, that life is worth living. I remember being at school when the Rolling Stones released Their Satanic Majesties Request and thinking nothing matters, not exams, not homework or other school stuff, everything will be OK because the Stones' new album is out. It was such a powerful feeling that I remember it to this day - utterly misplaced of course but potent at the time. So, now I long to communicate my emotions and sheer gratitude to those responsible, and it's not sufficient to roar and cry and laugh and rock and dance at the concerts, to sit, willing encore after encore. I want them to know how I feel, how much pleasure and insight they give to me. Occasionally, I'll write, short, simple, hopefully eloquent letters, but where to send them? Usually I send them care of the record label. I don't expect replies but, depressingly, I presume that the time between their arriving through the letterbox and reaching the bin does not allow for the intervening stage of opening, let alone reaching the eyes of those to whom they are addressed

8th June 2006

My papa's birthday

My wonderful papa's birthday; he would have been 90. I think back to the 80th birthday party we gave him at Middle Lodge, complete with a Gloucester Old Spot roast, fire eaters, acrobats, African music, many of his friends, his family and glorious sunshine. The day could not have been more perfect. Even the tropical fruit had been hand-carried from the Nairobi market in a kikapu. Why do I think of him when I'm shaving?

The bamboo is measured, cut, positioned and glued and by the end of the day we have a cascading set of planted water barrels; I bet the only ones in Britain!

10th June 2006

Christmas cards

Went to see Charles Mackworth Young for my regular lupus consultation. His best laid plans had come to nothing as my GP had failed to act on his instructions. Dr Sinclair is fabulous but I suspect disorganised. So, not much to talk about - no blood tests, no conversation. I share a bond with Charles in that a Marrian Christmas card and a Mackworth Young Christmas card appeared on the same page in Tatler a few years ago. Tatler were running a piece on unusual cards and ours was certainly that - a ten year old and an eight year old in white wedding dresses!

13th June 2006

Jerusalem to Jerusalem

Charlotte Lyle came to supper. What a joy that girl is. For a while she was a teacher at Iverna Gardens Montessori and I asked her one evening if she was related to the Andrew Lyle who'd been head of house when I was a new squit at Shrewsbury - her father, no less! I couldn't resist telling her of her dad's policy on reading the lesson in chapel: which was that any place name he couldn't pronounce got substituted by Jerusalem. Travellers were often heard to be going from Jerusalem to Jerusalem. The only person who ever noticed was the vicar who would mildly remonstrate with him afterwards

14th June 2006

Aurélia's Oratorio

Took Mrs Marrian's sister, Fiona Seymour, plus young Sidney Seymour, to Aurélia's Oratorio at the Lyric. Victoria Thierrée Chaplin and Aurélia Thierrée amused and surprised us although it was disappointing to see so many empty seats in the auditorium - possibly a mistake to try to re-create the success of last year's sell-out hit

15th June 2006

English food

Mother and stepfather came to dinner. Stepfather doesn't like oriental food (which we have been in the habit of eating and, on occasion, serving to him) so we had - hmmm, well I can't remember but it would have been English and delicious

19th June 2006

Ear trouble

Went to see Colin Wallace, ENT surgeon at the Cromwell, husband of Mrs Marrian's very good friend, Pamela, and father of younger daughter's once best friend, Sarah. He vacuumed my ear, prescribed some drops and charged me £100 which I know to be a considerable discount on his normal charges

20th June 2006

Stonehenge

Tom Stoppard's "Rock n Roll" at the Royal Court. I'd booked this ages ago in the (possible) expectation of hitting Stonehenge at 03:00 for the summer solstice followed by Stoppard in the evening. Thankfully, the weather intervened and we were spared Stonehenge. We did go in 2003, along with children, their boyfriends and nephew Jack, getting up at some unearthly hour only to get stuck in a monumental traffic jam at three thirty in the morning. As it got lighter and lighter, Mrs Marrian plus hoodlums legged it over the fields while I did the responsible bit of not parking on the side of the road as everyone else was doing but patiently inching my way in to the official car park and finally reaching the stones with 15 minutes to spare. A huge roar from the 10,000 worshippers went up as the sun appeared. Jack Marrian was in amongst the stones dancing his alcohol-fuelled socks off and the heavy, insistent, primordial drumming, which seemed to pour out of the ground itself, lifted our spirits with its promise of hope for the new year. We hung about, chilled, chatted to the natives, ate our breakfast, drank our tea, spent an age there and just when we felt it was getting late and we ought to go, looked at our watches to discover it was only 05:30! We met King Arthur and anyone who doubts his contribution to English Heritage's decision to open Stonehenge to the public for the summer solstice should read his excellent book

Back to Rock n Roll which was Stoppard at his best

21st June 2006

Motherhood

Åsa and her new baby, and not quite so new husband, came to supper. She was looking so pretty, even radiant. Motherhood suits her, and I'm sure the professional way in which Patrick rocked the baby to sleep helps!

22nd June 2006

Likely story

Off to see Colin Wallace again. He had made the very grave error of telling his wife that he'd charged me for my first consultation, which had prompted the severest of tickings off. Poor old Col appeared quite distressed as he told me this and I had the devil's own job to persuade him to accept any money at all for this appointment. Fifty quid is all he'd take; follow up appointment fee, he said. Likely story!

27th June 2006

Bloody lupus

Was due to play bridge with the Old Boy (David Combe), Simon Kingston (solicitor extraordinaire) and Hugo Prittie (my very old friend). Hugo flew in especially from Switzerland where he lives. Hugo should have been my best man. I always regretted that he wasn't. He is quite the most generous and loyal friend one could ever ask for. As so often happens, the wretched lupus intervened and I had to bow out. This is a most unwelcome and tediously repetitive aspect of my life but what's to be done?

29th June 2006

Garsington

Our annual visit to Garsington courtesy of Cordelia Brown (aka under-under-boss, which is a private joke that we won't go into here). The first year Cordelia took us coincided with elder daughter's graduation at Bristol which meant that, despite our best endeavours, we arrived too late for the first act. We were welcomed by a charming and beautiful woman who settled us down with a drink and said "Don't worry, it's a very silly opera" - as indeed they usually are. Garsington may even be known as the home of silly operas. This year we saw Don Pasquale, which I'd missed at the ROH (lupus again) but Mrs Marrian saw and loved, remarking particularly on the dolls' house set. Cordelia supplies the tickets, tables and chairs, champagne, bentley and Steve - we come in as the also-rans with the food. It's usually warm, and usually dry and always thoroughly enjoyable - they even lay on a full moon. David Lebus, Cordelia's nephew, is always kind enough to escort her

9th July 2006

Awesome

Lunch with Mark and Maddy Coles, who some years opened Coles, one of the more successful restaurants in and around Marlborough. Mrs Marrian is Godmother to their daughter Dora. The last time Dora stayed with us, her response to my telling her that I was off to have a bath (ie don't come in to the bathroom) was "awesome". I now look at bathing in an entirely new light

I have had to exercise considerable self-control (which is more than the Coles did) not to relay the hilarious, and revealing, story Maddy told about Mark's minor op...

16th July 2006

Conducting

Half brother Toby Morgan and Laura McFall were married at Shoreditch Town Hall. I have to say I was extremely impressed with the forthrightness of the ceremony. I hadn't realised that the civil ceremony was so definite in its emphasis on marriage being a serious and binding commitment - full marks. Reception was held at the Museum of Garden History. I sat next to the bride's brother's girlfriend, who is training to become a conductor. I asked her why not a cellist or violinist. She told me that when she was four she'd heard a piece by Bach which had captivated her so much that she listened to it over and over again. She'd understood that each individual instrument was just a part of the whole but that what she wanted was the whole

22nd July 2006

Alone in the dark

It seems as though a dark thing stalks me in London. I feel unwell and terrifically stressed. Thank God we go to Switzerland on Monday. Mrs Marrian has gone to Middle Lodge for the weekend, mainly to attend Tom and Clarissa Astor's "Afraid to Fly" evening of roast pig and country music. I am alone, and quiet, in the house

28th July

William

I hear from Mrs Marrian that young Prince William attended the Astor bash. He wanted to spend the night camping, along with his friends, but his minders wouldn't let him. That's no way to live a life. I imagine many will argue that he will have compensations, other pleasures, duties even; that he will see, possibly achieve, things that otherwise he would not see or achieve. But my attitude towards him is entirely coloured by the reaction I had to his mother's wedding. I wept during that grand service, not out of sentimentality, or because I weep at weddings, but because I saw very clearly that this young girl, a nursery school teacher, was being sacrificed on the altar of the British monarchy - and sacrificed she was. I believe there was a time at Eton when William felt himself to be a reluctant prince. Maybe those feelings have gone, or been driven out of him, but what I do know is that if they don't like what they see the English establishment will chew him up and spit him out, the tabloids will haunt and hound him and every position he wishes to adopt (from camping in a Gloucestershire field onwards) will be subject to someone else's views, someone else's modification. As I said, no way to live a life

29th July 2006

Piggott's partying

We drive to Switzerland with two minor mishaps: one when I mistake the clutch for the brake while on cruise control and end up having to brake rather more sharply than I would have liked, and the other when a diversion out of Pontarlier takes us for 40 minutes around the French countryside before dumping us back where we started. It is freezing when we arrive - what a contrast to the ghastly London heat wave - but the Piggotts have a dinner party in full swing and there is no finer way to arrive in Anzère than to the sound of the Piggotts partying!

31st July 2006

Inadequacy

Mrs Marrian and I catch up on the Astor party. The Malims had brought Hugh and Anne (or is it Ann?) Millais. Hugh sat next to Mrs Marrian at dinner and at one point said to her: "I was a painter, then a builder, then an actor, then a musician and now I'm a failure. Anne makes all the money and I stand in front of the aga". Ouch, ouch, ouch, that is very close to home. Why should we care if our wives make all the money? We should be grateful for God's sake. In some cases, I suspect it's just a personality defect. For example, Robin Day once told me he considered himself a failure - and at the peak of his powers too. There are always people ahead of us. Even prime ministers have better prime ministers ahead of them (and in the case of the present incumbent, a considerable number). But if we are unable to accept how we are; if we are inhibited by those who are better and greater and more accomplished, then we are doomed to depression, dejection and misery because they will always be there. And inhibited I am: so often I have started a conversation at a dinner party with a vaguely intelligent remark, seen the light of interest flicker in my interlocutor's eyes only to fade and die over the next twenty minutes as he realises the limits of my ability to say anything of any interest at all to him. God, it makes me cringe

The mother of a teenage boy told me how she feared for her son, how the single, young male had it all to do, often inferior to his female contemporaries, destined, perhaps, not to be the breadwinner and consequently, in her words, emasculated. So the very thing that this woman has striven for all her life, the liberation and empowerment of women, is now the thing that she fears threatens her son the most. And if she feels that, how much more is he likely to be sensitive to that transmitted emotion?

For myself, this all remains unresolved. I do what I can when I can, but when the accusation comes that it is not enough, could do better if he tried, I present my soft, white underbelly for the accusers to pick at

1st August 2006

Damaged children

We take a first, gentle walk - too gentle for me, not gentle enough for Mrs Marrian, but blissfully enjoyable nevertheless. How I relish the mountains. Strange how one thinks and thinks as one walks. I think of the world of termites and of Eugene Marais' book "The Soul of the White Ant", a book of considerable power and magic. At one stage he writes:

"The observer must understand that it is absolutely necessary for her future life that she shall at least experience the impression of flight. If she has not this, she simply dies"

and this compulsion always reminds me of the "dropping things" stage in a baby's development. She will endlessly drop things off her high chair. The instinctive mother will tolerate this; the educated mother will be aware that this activity is absolutely crucial for the development of her baby's neural pathways; the ignorant and self-obsessed mother will take this as a personal affront, her whole ego unable to comprehend that this is a stage that her baby has to go through. In the latter case the baby's intellectual growth is hindered because she is punished for behaviour over which she has no control - and, sadly, the streets of our cities are full of these damaged people

In the afternoon we go to Sion to collect my mother-in-law who is staying with us for two weeks

2nd August 2006

Les Chasseurs

I have found the road from Anzère to Mayens de la Dzour at long last! Mrs Marrian and her mother have gone to The Fondation Pierre Gianadda to see "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture européenne". Mayens de la Dzour contains the Restaurant des Chasseurs, one of our favourite Swiss restaurants. Usually, we drive down the mountain, park about 50 minutes away and walk to it from there. But the lunch is far too good not to have put in a much better effort than that, so I have made it my day's duty to identify, and commit to memory, the way from Anzère. I walk for hours, up many dead ends, but I do succeed, reaching the apartment in late afternoon very tired - too tired in fact, and with pains in my side and back

7th August 2006

The cold of August

Dragging my aching sides with me, we walk up to Serin and then across to Tsalan for coffee. Serin is quite beautiful, with snow low on the hills, but the weather is too cold for a picnic. We haven't taken a single picnic with us on our walks; never has the weather been so cold in August, and never has Mrs Marrian walked so fast! My side and back hurts more than ever and I have insect bites on my belly. I have no idea if they are connected

9th August 2006

Acer glen

I take ibuprofen for the pain and we dine with the Deenys. The food, as usual, is scrumptious and the Piggotts are there. There is no question that you can ask Pete Piggott which does not produce a lengthy and riotous story. He gives me advice on my proposed acer glen at Middle Lodge. Mother-in-law and Ann Piggott discuss painting at which they both excel

11th August 2006

Keaton's wedding

My niece Keaton's wedding to Jimmy. I should be there but I'm not and therein lie reasons, excuses, emotions and plain old circumstances, none of which I have the energy to go into right now

12th August 2006

Shingles

The pain is now too bad to ignore. Michael Deeny, whose saintliness knows no bounds, comes with me as translator to see Dr Imobersteg, muttering darkly about kidney stones. I prepare some notes beforehand about my medical history. Dr Imobersteg declines any translation, reads the notes in English and then asks if I am constipated. I tell him the bowels are working well and show him my insect bites in case they're relevant. "Zona", he exclaims. I've got shingles. No treatment except pain killers. Bollocks

Dr Imobersteg charges in 5 minute increments. I was there for twelve and a half minutes and the bill was CHF 40. British private medicine could learn a thing or two about this

14th August 2006

Compassion

Mother-in-law departs. That evening Mrs Marrian weeps over Sidney Seymour. Her compassion is real and acute, which is one of the qualities that makes her school so outstanding. Is this child to be cried over? Sadly, I think the answer is yes

16th August 2006

Confusion

SS

Those bandits at the Restaurant Grand Roc have decided to carry out a two day open air promotion featuring a cheesy band, which pumps up the volume until 02:00! And we are barely 20m from the PA system. This is so un-Swiss as to make me thoroughly confused. 

18th August 2006

No weddings

Brother Simon's birthday - must be 55 as I'm about to be 57. After Keaton's wedding he has to be broke! Neither of our girls shows any signs of marrying. Elder daughter has just split from Andrew Gow as has younger daughter from her New Zealand hunk. So our state of bankruptcy is postponed a while. The best we can hope for is either a double wedding or an elopement

19th August 2006

Happy birthday

Happy birthday me. Mrs Marrian provides the best birthday breakfast one could hope for and four presents

24th August 2006

Bill paying

We go with Michael and Joan Deeny to Restaurant des Chasseurs for lunch. The idea is that we will take them out as some small recompense for all the help they give us in our Swiss travails. Their daughter Michelle and her two children, David and Charlotte, also come and Michael insists that he will pay for them. A splendid lunch is had by all and then the bill arrives. The bill is not large - just over CHF 200 and as my mental budget for the lunch is CHF 200, that's what I bung in insisting that this is our very inadequate way of saying some small thank you and I won't hear of paying less. There follows five minutes of vociferous argument, joined in by three Deenys (Michelle valiantly entering the fray) and two Marrians (the children have their eye on a large jar of chocolates which, up to now, has been off limits so a) they're out of it and b) they know from experience that their mother is about to relent) during which all manner of threats, cajolings and just plain blackmail fly backwards and forwards across the table, accompanied by CHF 100 notes which are also hurled like darts from one side to the other - all of this watched with considerable amusement and growing incredulity by the waiter who has yet fully to experience the arcane ritual of English speaking people trying to pay a bill. I'm happy to say that I finally bring Management (ie Mrs Deeny) on side at which point all arguments end, the children get their chocolate and we all wend our merry way home

25th August 2006

Knickers

Mrs Marrian appears, wearing black knickers and nothing else, points everything at me and says "Not bad for a 52 year old woman"! And, despite it being well before breakfast, one has to agree

26th August 2006

Reims

Gloom! The long drive back home - except it isn't home. With an American mother, an English father, and born in Africa I have no roots. The kids at Shrewsbury called me Wog Marrian and their only interest seemed to be in reading the sports pages of the tabloids. Still, I could run faster than all of them, soon became Huntsman (school captain of running) and took refuge in the psychedelic flowering of rock and roll, a love that persists to this day and which, at the time, was possibly the only thing that stopped my terminal decline into melancholy and depression. Still, let's not go back to the wretched school days when where we're actually going is Hotel de la Cathédrale in Reims with dinner at Brasserie Flo. A request for "une chambre tranquille" nets the only room in the hotel that does not face on to the unspeakably noisy street; and it is quiet too, although one can't complain at €60 a night 150 metres from the cathedral. I keep forgetting we're no longer in Switzerland so order a bottle of wine in the restaurant thinking it's priced in Swiss Francs - ouch!

Mrs Marrian spots a likely looking breakfast venue and I'm lumbered with the task of telling the hotel receptionist (in my disgraceful French) that we won't be having breakfast with them after all because Madam wants to eat out

29th August 2006

Cathedrals

The breakfast venue advertises itself as open from 07:30. We pitch up at 08:30 and find a completely deserted room, in darkness. Sitting down purposefully results in a waitress, some menus and even the lights being turned on. The room is charming with panels of marquetry  and many other architectural features that Mrs Marrian would regale us with were she ever to get her hands on this diary.

The cathedral is awesome (no, I'm not an American teenager) as usual. We must book in for a guided tour at some point. As an ignorant visitor, many aspects thrill you, inspire you, even overwhelm you but you remain just that - ignorant. On our way to Glastonbury in 2005, we stopped off at Wells Cathedral and were fortunate enough to be offered a tour by an ex-guide who just happened to be passing. He brought the whole building alive telling us things that we could never possibly have divined otherwise

30th August 2006

FMF

Off to the Royal Free Hospital to see Helen Lachmann (senior lecturer in medicine) in the National Amyloidosis Centre. Charles Mackworth Young (my lupus consultant at Chelsea and Westminster) thinks I should be investigated for Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF). The waiting room contains a woman who's come all the way from Dorset and from whom they cannot obtain a blood sample. She looks dead healthy but nevertheless has her hands in hot water up to her elbows to try to dilate the veins. Helen Lachmann is charming. It's very important that one does not fall in love with one's consultants but what else do you do in Belsize Park? One thing that Helen doesn't do is speak English; I suppose when you're a senior lecturer in medicine you speak medicine and can, on occasion, forget to revert to the mother tongue when confronted by those of us who, although subject to medicine, don't actually speak it. Paul, the blood sucker, takes blood from my (well-behaved) vein and gives me three blood test packs for use when I develop fever

11th September 2006

Skin growths

In July 1997, I had a cancerous growth (known in the trade as an SCC) removed from my right temple. It was extremely unsettling waiting, and waiting, for an appointment with the dermatologist while the little bleeder doubled in size each week. Still, in due course, out it came. Chris Bunker scraped it off first but when the biopsy show cancer up to the edge of the sample, Mr Joshi, the eye surgeon, cut a bloody great big hole in the side of my face two days before we were due to go to Switzerland. "They won't like the stitches", he said referring to the Swiss doctor who was going to have to remove the stitches 10 days later. And indeed they didn't, although as the rough and ready village doctor who took them out did so with a large cigar in his mouth, and left some of them in, I didn't pay his opinions too much attention - so un-Swiss

Well, for the whole of August I've been watching a red patch in exactly the same place on my temple, and beginning in exactly the same way as the original. Chris Bunker, bless him, agrees to see me today and, while reassuring me that the patch looks benign nevertheless cuts it off as a precaution

18th September 2006

Mary Combe

Mary Combe's funeral. The letter I wrote to the family expresses my feelings about this and I reproduce it here:

We loved those weekends. Crank up the old, yellow Firebird, give it some welly on all eight cylinders up the A1, tank up in the Jolly Sailor and pitch up at Grove Cottage late on a Friday night to be met by a grand old man (one of the grandest I’ve had the pleasure of knowing) playing Jim Reeves at an ASBO volume, and a darling, darling woman who’d look at you quizzically, her head held slightly on one side as if to say “Well, you haven’t improved since last week”

And then we’d launch into a full-blooded weekend reinforcing your mother in her belief that it was indeed “Grope Cottage” over which she presided with such humour, care and love. By the time Sunday arrived, we’d be absolutely knackered, but blissfully happy, and then for lunch would be the most delicious, life-affirming stew, with mashed potatoes, veg, pudding, cream, everything one could possibly want

And the thing is that, while she was alive, we always knew we could go at any time to South Creake or Burnham Market , just to be in her company, to reminisce, to say thank you. For years we didn’t because we got busy and had businesses and children and problems, none of which should have stopped us, but always we knew that we could go and that was a great comfort

And finally when we did go we found her gone, but not gone, because she was there in all those old friends who gathered to praise her life and speed her on her way to wherever it is that your father has taken his Jim Reeves records. Looking at the Combe children in that beautiful church we knew and recognised that these were truly good people, people we could respect and look up to and we also knew and recognised that this was in no small measure down to their Mum

Thank you Mary and God bless you

19th September 2006

30 years

We go to Hotel Tresanton in St Mawes for two nights to celebrate 30 years of wedded bliss, October 2nd being "the day". Mrs Marrian deserves lots of flowers for her persistence in putting up with me, and she gets them. I'm shivering in anticipation of her reaction to a room full of flowers. "What are all these flowers?", she says encouragingly. "Perhaps my sister arranged for them". Clearly, she does not associate me with the grand, romantic gesture, and I have to explain in two syllable words that it is me, not her wretched sister, who has arranged for them. They are extremely beautiful, each bouquet subtly different from its neighbour but there are so many of the damn things that that we have to play musical flowers each time we want to do anything in the room

I have a real beef with Hotel Tresanton. It's a lovely hotel, and it is a joy to stay there but their booking procedure leaves much to be desired. No matter how far in advance you book, your credit card is immediately debited with £100. You then receive a letter through the post informing you that if you cancel with less than three weeks notice, you will be charged for the whole of your stay anyway. I have stayed at many nice hotels, particularly Relais & Châteaux ones, throughout Europe and not one of them has ever welcomed me in this way. The irritating thing is that I'm sure this policy is selective. I don't imagine Freddy Forsythe is subjected to this indignity, or indeed Mrs Marrian's sister. It's the Fawlty Towers approach to management. Still, it's a measure of the special nature of Hotel Tresanton that we actually go back there

1st October 2006

Isolation

St Mawes is blessed with a working (but automated) lighthouse, whose regular, hypnotic, revolving light adds so much to the atmosphere of that beautiful, peaceful harbour. We drive to it after breakfast and walk four miles along the coastal path to Portscatho for a pint of beer and lunch. We have seen seals from that path but saw none this time. I would expect the return walk to seem longer, postprandial, but it never does. On the drive back every turn in the road reveals more secluded and isolated spots that draw me to them powerfully. I would happily move in to the woods with my guitar and a good supply of firewood but I don't think my chances of separating Mrs Marrian from her 19 bus route are too good. In fact, I'm not sure we'd reach 31 years of wedded bliss

2nd October 2006

Anzère

We drive to Anzère to escape the poison. The produits de région shop in Besancon is actually open for a change, and we stock up. Anzère is warm and safe

14th October 2006

Deuxième service

The Deenys take us to the restaurant at the Lac de Tzeusier for chasse. They drive but we walk because I cannot face any more driving after 650 miles the day before. Michael has been looking forward to his chasse for some time and is less than impressed when I announce that I can only eat soup. Huge plates of cerf and sanglier are brought to which the Deenys do exemplary justice. Even Mrs Marrian, who is not a big meat eater, empties her plate. As the conversation turns to pudding, three more plates of chasse, with fresh vegetables, arrive. Considerable confusion reigns while it is explained to us that, no, this is not another table's order and, yes, we are expected to eat another main course, having just stuffed ourselves on the first one. This is known as deuxième service and is a tradition employed by the Swiss to ensure that all the game shot by their gung-ho hunters actually gets eaten. Mrs Marrian refuses outright. To their eternal credit the Deenys make a commendable stab at not disappointing the chef. I feel very smug

15th October 2006

Serin

We walk to Serin with our picnic. The sun is low but warm; extraordinary to realise that this mid-October day is warmer than any in August. We didn't have a single picnic during that month

16th October 2006

All ruined

(I have left this diary entry using the rationale that diary entries should never be altered. However, we have not vacated Middle Lodge and will not now do so)

We do the long walk to Incron, sharply up to Le Go, past the painting trough, down into the valley looking out on Mayens de la Dzour, eating wild raspberries as we descend, the long haul up to the shepherd's hut (which Mrs Marrian is convinced has been picked up and placed several kilometres higher than the last time she did this walk), traverse the woodland and the scree, ever watchful for the snakes that lie on the path absorbing the sunlight, up, up to the perfect little meadow of Incron. The sky is utterly clear, deep cobalt blue, infinite; there is no haze and from horizon to horizon no cloud, just warmth and peace. We lie in the long grass, still full of flowers. Butterflies visit Mrs Marrian. So they should, because she is beautiful and they love the colour of her skin. We hear the cries of the hunting birds way below. In all of creation, this must be close to heaven. I am reminded of the end of Elvira Madigan and like the lieutenant in that film if I had had a gun, I would have shot Mrs Marrian and then shot myself

Our hopes and dreams for Middle Lodge lie in ruins. Our children's weddings, our grandchildren running wild in the tamed garden, sleepovers in the summer house, all ruined, all gone. The Path of True Love, the Path of Thyme, the pond, the pergola, the hornbeam arbour, the brilliance of the deer fence, the acer and bluebell glade, the sunken bog garden, the curved boxwood hedge, all ruined. Butterflies on the black cedum in the autumn sun, fireglow berries on the pyracantha, flame flowers on the Tropaeolum, the viticella free, free, covering the flint and Cotswold stone, flowing in and out of the wall-trained shrubs, fragrant buds on the daphne awaiting February, blueberries long ago in the stomachs of blue tits, acer palmatum, evergreen jasmine, lilac planted especially for childhood memories, the wisteria and rambling roses, blue and white, the espalier pear trees, the climbing hydrangea, all ruined. The deadly heron, the shimmering flash of the golden orfe, iridescent dragonflies dip, dip, dipping, white scented water hawthorn flowers, lilies, rich and red, white too, marsh marigold magnificent with late season yellow, fern fossils in the indian stone paving, the spouting frog, the cascading water barrels with bamboo channels and bamboo legs, the soft, feathery myriophyllum competing with the bog arum lily in a race to escape, the reeds and flowering rushes six feet tall, all ruined. The weeping beech, growing at last now that the muntjac are banished, acer shirasawanum 'aureum' so beautiful, so small and so old, yellow flags, presula cervina with its scent of mint, rheum, royal fern, purple loosestrife, rodgersia,  gunnera, large and imposing with echoes coming in over tens of thousands of years, all ruined. The rough, russet bark of the dog fox in the night, the owl in the swamp cypress, the full, pale red moon on the lake, the impossible talent of the woodpecker, all ruined. The unused swings awaiting new life, new shrieks of laughter on the slippy slide, new fingers to sift the soft silver sand, new mini bicycles for fifth birthdays, all ruined.

Memories, too many to list, too painful to bring out on the page, but particularly of the Mzee's 80th with gloucester old spot roast, fire eaters, acrobats and african music - ah glory days for a glory man. The memories remain, all else is ruined, all gone

"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away."
Marcus Aurelius

Shantih, shantih, shantih

17th October 2006

Chasse

We walk to Restaurant des Chasseurs in Mayens de la Dzour for chasse. Of all the restaurants I've been to in Le Valais, this is my favourite. It helps that we now know how to walk to it from Anzère. We are prepared for deuxième service and have a) no starter and b) miniscopular first helpings. The waitress is on to us and the second helping punishes us for our abstemiousness in the first. I try desperately to get some of the food removed from the plate but, to the amusement of the entire restaurant, the waitress sits down, folds her arms, and refuses to have anything further to do with us until I relent, which I do. For some reason that entirely escapes me I leave her a tip

20th October 2006

Pas de Maimbré

I walk alone to Pas de Maimbré for cheese fondue. This is a bitch of a walk. The advertised time is two and a half hours although younger daughter and I have done it in one hour and eighteen minutes; during that time you go from 1500m to 2400m. I only manage one and a half hours, which on reflection is not bad, but I am completely knackered when I reach the top - almost too knackered to eat the cheese fondue, but not quite!

22nd October 2006

Habit

Hotel de la Cathédrale in Reims and Brasserie Flo - oh what creatures of habit we are

23rd October 2006

Recording

Off to Bristol to record four songs with Dan Cox - blind man in the dark, lily rose revisited, pdm and simon's song. I've slept badly and feel unwell, the former a result of the latter. Dan's mum is just back from hospital so we can't record there but his dad is away so has kindly given us permission to use his house. Dan is dead chuffed with his new Mac; I've remembered to bring all the equipment this time so the infrastructure rocks! My singing has not got any better but we do our best. Dan is good at knowing when I can do better and when persevering will just mean more of the same. We do blind man in the dark and lily rose revisited, leaving the two family songs for the next day when I hope to feel better. I book in to Alveston House Hotel, ask for a quiet room and actually get given one!

14th November 2006

Family songs

I decide to do pdm first. This song is not easy for me as it deals with my father's death, and I find it extremely difficult to sing without a constricted throat. Normally, I will put down the vocal one verse at a time but for this song I just do two takes all the way through. The second is better than the first and, with a great deal of relief, that is that!

The second song, simon's song, proves to be a real pig, and I thought it was going to be much the easiest. This is only an indication of the liberties I take with musical structure when I sing my songs. Once Dan has forced them to comply with some basic elements of rhythm and timing, I can end up having to learn the song all over again. I wrote this for my brother a long time ago. The middle verse was always weak and wanting to record it meant that I improved it substantially

15th November 2006

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving! Having an American mother means that Thanksgiving is celebrated every year. There have been many memorable ones, none more so than this year - relaxed, good food, great company, a real treat and pleasure. It was 32 years ago to the day that the nubile Mrs Marrian was presented, wearing such a skimpy dress that the austere heating regime (now a thing of the past) of St Peter's Square forced her to cover up with a borrowed woolly

23rd November 2006

Colchicine

Back to the Royal Free. Helen Lachmann (still senior lecturer in medicine) doesn't recognise me. This is disappointing; I certainly recognise her (readers may refer to the diary entry of 11th September for "history"). However, she sure knows my file and, as a special treat, the young lady, who would make a perfectly good substitute in the falling in love stakes and who does the genetic testing, is present. I am very, very complicated, very complicated. Helen is purring. I'm very rare; one in two hundred. If I was a Turk, or a semite, then I'd only be one in five but I'm a caucasian and that makes me one in two hundred. I've always thought of myself as being a bit rarer than that, if the truth be told, but I don't want to spoil Helen's moment, rain on her parade so to speak. Apparently bits of me have mutated and I'm now the proud possessor of a gene with a number no less. Helen becomes so excited that she stops speaking English and, not wishing to spoil our moment together, I nod and smile, look thoughtful, and let the unsettling but thankfully unintelligible (to me) language of medicine pass my by. Well almost, because Helen is about to change my life by prescribing a drug that sounds like culturezene but, as I discover when I get to a computer, is spelled colchicine. It works but nobody knows how. If you suffer from gout, that's what they give you, and in 1972 an FMF patient who also suffered from gout refused his doctor's suggestion that he take something else for his gout because his FMF had entirely disappeared. The doctor recognised a eureka moment when he saw one and so an important medical advance was made. Now, I don't have gout. Mind you I didn't have malaria either for the 12 years I spent taking anti-malarials, until they gave me tinnitus. So it is beginning to look very much as though what is wrong with me is an inability to have the right disease. Out of curiosity I look up colchicine on Wikipedia which describes it as "a highly poisonous alkaloid". This shows how much they know. I must get Helen to correct that entry when I next see her, assuming I haven't been highly poisoned in the meantime. Having (I think, possibly, maybe) diagnosed me as actually having FMF, and having promised me a fever-free future, she's not willing to do the prescribing herself preferring to rely on Charles Mackworth Young. I suspect this shows that if anyone has to prescribe a highly poisonous alkaloid, she'd rather it was someone other than the senior lecturer in medicine at the Royal Free

27th November 2006

Teachers' dinner

Teachers' dinner: the Christmas term incarnation of this ritual involves all the teachers at Iverna Gardens Montessori (women every last one of them) coming to our house and my cooking for them; which I do with pleasure. Boy, these girls sure can a) have a good time and b) laugh. It's just as well there's school the next morning otherwise I'm not sure any of them would go home

30th November 2006

Diamond Divas

We go to see the Diamond Divas at The Garrick Club, a performance by the singers sponsored by my stepfather, Roger Morgan, and Oliver Leigh-Wood, followed by dinner. I think it would be reasonable to say that there are some old gentlemen present who leave rather more invigorated than they arrived. The singing is beautiful and the pianist is exceedingly handsome and elegant, although perhaps a little too loud for the voices. I'm not a great one for all the naughty minx stuff but I can see that the corporate world is partial to it

1st December 2006

Natalie

Miss Stansbury becomes Mrs Williamson

16th December 2006

Oak

Steve Edmunds of DM Edmunds & Son, round timber hauliers, carefully deposits 26 tonnes of Westonbirt oak on the front Middle Lodge lawn in a nice neat row. Mother-in-law says we are now a saw mill. I reassure her that the pile is no match for my my chain saw but I know I've got my work cut out

22nd December 2006

Acers and bluebells

The acer and bluebell glade at Middle Lodge is underway! Quite why I insist on embarking on these projects over Christmas I don't know. The clouds are six feet above the ground, the days are dark and short, it always rains and the project invariably involves digging in heavy, wet clay. The mess is indescribable and most of it ends up in the cottage. Still, here we are wrestling with Kinch Plant's finest rotovator, wrestling indeed. "Let the machine do the work" is good advice but not all that easy to follow, and every ten minutes the whole thing has to be marched to the nearest hose pipe and unblocked from the araldite-like clay. To cap it all, I break a blade on a submerged iron rod and have to halt operations. Nevertheless, it's mostly finished - certainly good enough for the planting of 2000 bluebell bulbs waiting expectantly in the summer house

Mother-in-law tells me I've overdone it and that I'll be sick for Christmas

23rd December 2006

Christmas eve lunch

And I am sick - sad to miss the annual Christmas Eve lunch at the Mandarin Kitchen with John and Michelle Garrett

24th December 2006

Roast potatoes

Being sick doesn't absolve me from dragging my sorry behind out of bed to make 60 roast potatoes for the Christmas lunch at Addison Road

25th December 2006

Bluebells

Do you have any idea how long it takes to plant 2000 bluebell bulbs, each one done by hand? Younger daughter (bless her) and I spend the whole day (that bit of it that's actually light) at it and still only manage half

27th December 2006

The last 1000

David Yeates, our gardener, bravely volunteers to help with the remaining 1000 bulbs. He spots the croquet centre peg in the summer house and from then on we're away. I plunge the peg into the sticky clay to make the holes and David plants and covers. Rain threatens all day but holds off

28th December 2006

Relief

The 15 acers from Junkers Nursery are due today but an email arrives: Justin the driver has been sick all night. I am quietly relieved. What with oak trunks, bulbs, keeping the fires going, cooking and generally having a good time, I am exhausted

29th December 2006