Low life
Moving-in day
Jeffrey Bernard
It's going to get increasingly harder to write about low life now that I've moved to my residence on top of the Berkshire "owns. Last night, for example, as I lay /aWake in bed wondering what to write today was driven to distraction by the flickering the log fire. What's more, once the wind "as been slightly deflected by the trees in IttY.Paddock it makes one hell of a noise as it whistles down the chimneys and into the tl_tePlaces in the guest rooms. But more than ,I2e flickering of my bedroom fire and more `uan the noise of the wind it was the thought cif clearing up all those empty bottles in the °roing that kept me awake. It wasn't -e411Y a house-warming party in a serious sense, but a moving-in day rehearsal for one t° come and we'll have that once all the ca.rPets are laid. Of course, there's a delay with that sort of work as there is with anything that needs to be delivered up here Oithering Heights. It really is extremely .ficult sometimes for the tradesmen to jive up to the top here when the road is MOCk'led by horses walking up to the Sum erdown gallops to prepare for the Derby. Work is progressing though and in a couple of week's time, round about the time the man is coming to prune the fruit trees, the room I already call `Taki's Room' should be ready. Meanwhile, down in the valley logs are already being sawed up for the big open fire in the library, the river is shortly to be stocked with trout and a steady stream of wine shipments is arriving daily in Lambourn. My old cottage awaits its new tenant — one of those people Auberon Waugh writes so scathingly about — but I haven't lost touch completely. There's a decorator here who's finishing a few odd jobs and who had the impertinence to address me socially this morning, who reminded me painfully of my past way of life when he made some passing and mundane remarks about the chances of Captain Forster's stable winning the Grand National on Saturday before he embarked on an in-depth analysis of local beers. Still, it's good to know that some rituals such as beer drinking and the eating of what is called a 'ploughman's lunch' are still as firmly adhered to as they were in the days of William Cobbett.
The said decorator, incidentally, jumped with fright, knocking over a tin of paint, when I somewhat carelessly opened a breakfast bottle of Bollinger that had just been given to me by Lord Howard de Walden's groom. Fortunately, he carried on cheerfully with his labours when I explained to him that the noise was the result of a build-up of gas due to the wine having been incorrectly kept. Work was still further delayed when his companion, a carpenter, caused me great embarrassment when he accidentally found my cheque from the Distressed Gentlefolks Association which had blown off the console table in the main hall, out of the windows and onto the croquet lawn. He was touched, I thought, to realise that even those at the Hall were not beyond the reach of the avaricious blacklegs and duns that populate Newmarket Heath.
But, every cloud as they say, and good news came when Peter Walwyn telephoned to say that he is having a tennis court put down in his garden. I would very much like to have one myself but I fear the fresh breezes on top of the Downs would render the game an aerodynamic impossibility. Luckily, it is no great hardship to walk along the Ridgeway on a fine summer's day — pausing only to horsewhip the odd malingering shepherd — to Walwyn's estate and I look forward immensely to doing just that after a hard morning's work in my study on the book I am writing. It is a history of my amazing family from General `Buffy' Bernard, who fought against the Duc de Claret on the fields of Cognac, to the present incumbent of Dithering Heights. I'm working on the chapter about the tragic Rupert Bernard who, you will remember, committed suicide by taking an overdose of Lapsang Suchong in the pied-a-terre of Ronald Firbank on the very day the Nicolsons opened their first daffodil to the public.
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