It's funny that when you're 47 and going to a fiftieth birthday party you feel slightly awkward and a little uncomfortable....a kind of feeling bought on by faint pity and chronic panic that you don't have long yourself. But then when you are fifty two you feel that the host is young, a whippersnapper with the best years ahead of them...
Last night I went to Ambrose Carey's party in Kensington Square, in the same beautiful house that hasn't changed even a light bulb since my first party there in 1981. Everyone looked the same just older, more rounded shoulder and shorter gait perhaps. Ambrose was at Norwich University (UEA) in the early 80s and he is the one that has changed the least. He probably still rides a bicycle. Joanna Zengelis is just as cute and tall and slender as she always was. David and clare-lesley Morgan (he is my dentist and a great friend) were there with Murray Shanks (Clare Lesley's brother) who I met on the marble staircase at Worth Abbey, our Benedictine School in Sussex in 1973. The party is wonderful, pretty and picturesque with lots of champagne, good wine and delicious food.
In the garden the artist Giles Wood managed to get through three Sharwara wraps, (chicken, lamb and falafel) from the pop up Maroush tented restaurant., joking that you get a free mini-cab home if you swallow the lot. His wife Mary Killen helped the entrepreneur Charlie Skinner with his social dilemma of finding himself partnered with a transvestite at his dancing classes and the journalist Matthew Bell good naturedly confided that his friends were horrified that he was out at a 50th.
We danced in Ambrose's old bedroom, which is a beautiful studio in the garden. It has never seen so much action. It is so spacious and elegant it was more like being in LA than W8.
17th November
This morning I helped my 88 yr old father re hang most of the paintings in his house and packed my bags for a long week end trip to a party in Chicago.
Then I headed to the Savoy River Room for lunch. It was very nice to bump into Tony McHale, General Manager of the Mandarin Oriental who was meeting Kiaran McDonald, General Manager of the Savoy, for lunch.
I was hosting a lunch for the writer Charlotte Metcalf and two of her guests from the States. Over sherry in the American Bar they expressed their dismay at the new Caprice and also Greens, where they used to eat once a week......neither iconic restaurant offered ANYTHING they or their guests would want to eat. This made me feel a little uncomfortable as their host.
The Dover Sole in the River room was their testing plate and thankfully a resounding success. It really was superb.....as was the wine recommended by the sommelier, light balanced and fruity but crisp.
Sergio arrived on cue to get me to the airport for the 5.15 American Airline flight to Chicago.
The visit to the 'windy city' is not 50th but a celebration based around the Christmas lights being switched on. Unusual I know, but We are to view it from a private dinner on the 88th floor of the Trump Tower downtown. My hosts are Jodi and Greg Hamstra...Jodi has just spent the last week end in London with me having a ball for her daughter Brindy's early 21st celebration. We are going to be joined by Tony and Mary Beth Bos, who are dairy farmers producing 2 million pints a day in Indiana. I met them when I he'd the pleasure of looking after them in London 4 years ago. We are going to get a tour of their farms and cheese making facilities which will be fascinating. One new calf is born every few minutes on their ranch. I will definitely be having White coffee at elevenses tomorrow
I am writing this on the plane over the the Atlantic somewhere south of Iceland. The service is tolerant chic. My stewardess is like Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin. Surly to her sergeant and on the verge of letting you have it. Unfortunately she looks like the sergeant - the object of her contempt, not Goldie.
The drinks with dinner are $7 per time whatever you have and you have to pay with a credit card each time. After a brief chat i am the first passenger to have an account. The seats are wider than normal but the service and attitude is thinly disguised 'cattle class'. And I still have 7.5 hrs to go. First class looks like A&E or at least sick bay and business class like an Internet cafe...
Change the watch for 1.30pm local time and note that it is 7.30pm London time. Its going to be a long afternoon. That Dover Soul seems a long time away ....
Arriving at the Trump Tower Chicago one is not disappointed. The lift to the penthouse takes less than 30 seconds and the views are stupendous...there before you lies Lake Michigan, Chicago and all Illinois beyond....sparkling and spread out like a dessert but one made of clistening diamonds rather than sand. It's like arriving in Venice for the first time....one can't use an original way of describing the wonder...
Last night I went to Ambrose Carey's party in Kensington Square, in the same beautiful house that hasn't changed even a light bulb since my first party there in 1981. Everyone looked the same just older, more rounded shoulder and shorter gait perhaps. Ambrose was at Norwich University (UEA) in the early 80s and he is the one that has changed the least. He probably still rides a bicycle. Joanna Zengelis is just as cute and tall and slender as she always was. David and clare-lesley Morgan (he is my dentist and a great friend) were there with Murray Shanks (Clare Lesley's brother) who I met on the marble staircase at Worth Abbey, our Benedictine School in Sussex in 1973. The party is wonderful, pretty and picturesque with lots of champagne, good wine and delicious food.
In the garden the artist Giles Wood managed to get through three Sharwara wraps, (chicken, lamb and falafel) from the pop up Maroush tented restaurant., joking that you get a free mini-cab home if you swallow the lot. His wife Mary Killen helped the entrepreneur Charlie Skinner with his social dilemma of finding himself partnered with a transvestite at his dancing classes and the journalist Matthew Bell good naturedly confided that his friends were horrified that he was out at a 50th.
We danced in Ambrose's old bedroom, which is a beautiful studio in the garden. It has never seen so much action. It is so spacious and elegant it was more like being in LA than W8.
17th November
This morning I helped my 88 yr old father re hang most of the paintings in his house and packed my bags for a long week end trip to a party in Chicago.
Then I headed to the Savoy River Room for lunch. It was very nice to bump into Tony McHale, General Manager of the Mandarin Oriental who was meeting Kiaran McDonald, General Manager of the Savoy, for lunch.
I was hosting a lunch for the writer Charlotte Metcalf and two of her guests from the States. Over sherry in the American Bar they expressed their dismay at the new Caprice and also Greens, where they used to eat once a week......neither iconic restaurant offered ANYTHING they or their guests would want to eat. This made me feel a little uncomfortable as their host.
The Dover Sole in the River room was their testing plate and thankfully a resounding success. It really was superb.....as was the wine recommended by the sommelier, light balanced and fruity but crisp.
Sergio arrived on cue to get me to the airport for the 5.15 American Airline flight to Chicago.
The visit to the 'windy city' is not 50th but a celebration based around the Christmas lights being switched on. Unusual I know, but We are to view it from a private dinner on the 88th floor of the Trump Tower downtown. My hosts are Jodi and Greg Hamstra...Jodi has just spent the last week end in London with me having a ball for her daughter Brindy's early 21st celebration. We are going to be joined by Tony and Mary Beth Bos, who are dairy farmers producing 2 million pints a day in Indiana. I met them when I he'd the pleasure of looking after them in London 4 years ago. We are going to get a tour of their farms and cheese making facilities which will be fascinating. One new calf is born every few minutes on their ranch. I will definitely be having White coffee at elevenses tomorrow
I am writing this on the plane over the the Atlantic somewhere south of Iceland. The service is tolerant chic. My stewardess is like Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin. Surly to her sergeant and on the verge of letting you have it. Unfortunately she looks like the sergeant - the object of her contempt, not Goldie.
The drinks with dinner are $7 per time whatever you have and you have to pay with a credit card each time. After a brief chat i am the first passenger to have an account. The seats are wider than normal but the service and attitude is thinly disguised 'cattle class'. And I still have 7.5 hrs to go. First class looks like A&E or at least sick bay and business class like an Internet cafe...
Change the watch for 1.30pm local time and note that it is 7.30pm London time. Its going to be a long afternoon. That Dover Soul seems a long time away ....
Arriving at the Trump Tower Chicago one is not disappointed. The lift to the penthouse takes less than 30 seconds and the views are stupendous...there before you lies Lake Michigan, Chicago and all Illinois beyond....sparkling and spread out like a dessert but one made of clistening diamonds rather than sand. It's like arriving in Venice for the first time....one can't use an original way of describing the wonder...