It seems to me it’s unusual to have a surname that is a vegetable or herb. The Broccoli dynasty of Bond fame, of course, and the fictional Parsnip created by Evelyn Waugh to mock WH Auden in Put Out More Flags. So I’m pleased to add Parsley to my trug.
Most of you have de-camped to sunnier climes. Readers have reported in from Sri Lanka, Rajasthan, the West Indies, Spain , North Africa and New Zealand. Well, it’s not so bad in London.
Lord Rothschild represented The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. I represented you, readers who share my admiration for John Julius Norwich, on Wednesday.
Yesterday I left you in Essex on a bank of the Stour estuary at Mistley. The Mistley Thorn where we lunched has a strange and disturbing tale to tell on a board on its west wall.