It’s a particularly calm day. I refer not to the inner sanctum of Watt House but to the prevailing meteorological conditions. That’s not to say that it’s not also unusually laid back here. Daughter Tiggy is away for the weekend doing her Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. The Brobdingnagian Oliver is ripping up Royal Eastbourne Golf Club with a few mates and Mrs T is busy in the kitchen conjuring up a Butternut Squash and Bacon bake as an alternative to our regular sunday evening roast. The rice krispy caramels look like a dangerously calorific adjunct. But back to the meteorological bit. The English Channel is flat enough to do the ironing on. This is a subject with which I am depressingly familiar. As a househusband it’s a steady round of laundry, hoovering, dusting, cleaning the silver (today’s task) and generally titivating. In common with housewives the world over I wouldn’t mind, if I got paid for it. Little did I think when I was hurtling earthwards beneath the parachute’s silk, whizzing inches above the ground at high speed over Salisbury Plain in my muscular Lynx helicopter or illuminating the nation as to why the Queen would nod her head on Trooping the Colour, that one day I would be relegated to a life of impecunious slavery.
It was pure coincidence that very shortly after I had written No. 233, I enjoyed an oat milk latte or two with a relatively new acquaintance by the name of Helen, who’s hubby has recently become a HSM (the convenient College abbreviation for Housemasters and Housemistresses) of a girls’ boarding house; an interesting experiment in itself. Helen proved to be a most entertaining companion with many views and opinions in common with my own, but also some challenging ones. She certainly opened my eyes to the question of immigration and the flood of asylum seekers risking all to reach the White Cliffs. As she rightly says, they must be truly desperate to take on the enormous risks involved in making the hazardous journey. Many of their number are extremely fit and able young people, some very well qualified, who could surely be put to productive use doing all the multifarious jobs that indolent Britons seem to find so unattractive. It makes sense that they should be made to earn their keep thereby slaughtering two birds with one stone. My only concern is that the Anglo Saxon Britain that I knew and loved as a youth is rapidly disappearing, indeed has already irrevocably changed and that, for a dyed-in-the-wool old fart, is rather a shame.
It seems it’s not just The Truss that’s for turning. The leaves are rapidly following suit, led by the horse chestnuts, then the ornamental cherries and other fruit trees, until finally the grand oaks will undress before the inevitable gales and worse that will no doubt shortly sweep in off the Atlantic as a reminder that global warming doesn’t just mean decadently idle days and weeks of glorious summer heat, but also viciously stormy months when a second home in Arabella, a forty five minute drive from Cape Town, seems a highly desirable objective. I had the chance to buy a plot on the gorgeous Arabella Golf Estate over twenty years ago for about £30,000. Those same plots with rather grand dwellings on top, now sell for the equivalent of £1m or more. Another opportunity missed. The onset of Autumn has so far been remarkably benign with gentle winds, little rain and temperatures in the high teens. “Just you wait” as Professor Henry Higgins protegé from the London slums so memorably sang. (Well it’s memorable if you know My Fair Lady, otherwise you won’t have a clue what I’m blathering on about). The point being that unless we are very fortunate the arrival of short days and long nights will also presage much precipitation and draftiness. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather have days where the ice crystals glisten in a magical sunny veil above the frozen, snow blanketed Downs, than relentless grey, humid, dull, swindswept ones. Still, rather like the Conservative Party, it matters not what we wish for, a greater power will inflict upon us what it will.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 