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Inappropriate crying is something I do. I never squeeze out a drop at funerals and seldom at operas.

Published in 1942 by BT Batsford Ltd, The Last of Uptake does not take the knee to wartime economies.

Many years ago I was dining with friends when the doorbell went. Who could it be so late?

Three or four mornings a week I drive out on the M4 to Cranford Park with Bertie. The park is sandwiched between the motorway and the north runway at Heathrow.

There was no post yesterday because I was busy doing a time-consuming chore; tidying the cellar.

I’m glad I still keep a hard copy of financial transactions that may eventually have tax implications. They are stored in this wonderfully retro ring-binder rescued by me as my grandfather was about to throw it on a bonfire. Now look inside.

Oh, Farrow & Ball, We must have Elephant’s Breath in the hall. There’s a room where I go for a drink, That will be Sulking Room Pink. Charleston Gray, London Clay, Setting Plaster and Card Room Green, Incarnadine, Borrowed Light, Skylight, What are these colours, pray? Eating Room Red for where I am fed, Pale Hound… Continue reading Trooping the Colour

In the 19th century the four acre walled garden had heated hothouses and some twenty gardeners. When my grandparents came back from Gloucestershire to live at Barmeath in 1938 the house had been empty for about ten years and house and gardens were both in a sorry state.