I am back at the Old Rectory this morning, after dashing for a quick walk with Domino at the Hurlingham Club in London earlier. It was snowing, on the way down, as I hit the Hindhead Tunnel. The first flurries of snow this winter.

I love the Old Rectory. It is solid and substantial, unlike terraces in Chelsea, which are tall and thin and usually one room wide. I used to struggle with the idea that there were couples asleep in the adjacent rooms on either side of our bedroom when we lived in Limerston Street, Chelsea. I could have yelled out goodnight like in the Waltons. But the Old Rectory is also reminiscent of the old vicarage in Kent, Stone House, where, Geoffrey Wilmot, my husband grew up. His parents, Anthony and Eve, filled it with their family, all seven of them. Twins at the top and twins at the bottom – bookends.

I have misled you. I met my first pheasant, Susan, in Sydney. We were waiting to go into a university lecture on linguistics and she started chatting to me. I had never met a pheasant before, and she stuck out like sore thumb in the land of kangas and emus. First it was her attire. Sloaney. She was wearing a blue gathered skirt with a crisp white shirt. The shirt had puffed sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. She had ballet pumps. I later noticed that she wore a gold signet ring on the pinkie of her left hand, engraved with her family crest. And then there was her voice. Dead posh. I was wearing a canary yellow shirt and white dungarees and old tennis shoes. I looked like a cockatoo. Lady Di had not come onto the scene, so Susan was a novelty. A exotic creature that was fascinating and glamorous. Her nails were always manicured. Mine, I bit off. I had freckles and a tan. She had the flawless complexion of an English rose.

Susan and me in Palm Beach, Florida

Susan’s stepfather, Louis, Argentine (born in Argentina to British/American parents) and Susan’s mother, Joanna, (British; a WW2 refugee, brought up in Palm Beach, Florida), welcomed me into their family, and I spent hours at their house, sleeping over, talking politics, occasional gin and tonic (new to me).

They took me to my first smart restaurant in Sydney for Susan’s 19^th birthday. The crowd was mainly posh Brits on gap years. I sat next to Louis and read the starter menu. I ordered the seafood salad thinking it would be a prawn cocktail. Out came a plate filled with mussels and oysters. Of course I knew what they were, because Dad loved them and gobbled them up in vast quantities, but my youthful palate was not so keen. Anyway, with my crisp white linen napkin glued to my lap and surrounded by ‘Hooray Henrys and Carolines’, I ventured the first bite of a mussel. I started to gag and without hesitation Louis turned to me, lifted my napkin to my lips and instructed, “Spit it out.” He then disposed of the napkin and asked the waiter to take away my plate. Supreme gentleman. We then all danced the night away at the upmarket disco there.

My life up until the age of 18 existed within a radius of ten miles, apart from the occasional visits to my grandparents’ holiday home on the North coast, The Weekender. Susan and her family helped me see beyond the horizon of Sydney Harbour to a big wide world that I had only glimpsed at through literature and cinema. They made it real and tantalising.

Susan asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding to her fiancé, David, at Holy Trinity Brompton, Knightsbridge, in September 1988 and afterwards at the Hurlingham Club. She had returned to London after Uni, completing her course two years earlier than me. I had made a possum’s mess of my life in Oz so I thought, “Why not try your luck Pottsie and go to England to the wedding and see if you can work over there in a London law firm.”

So on that second day in England, 2oth August, 1988, Susan and I headed down the A3 to Kent on a sunny day, with lamb’s wool clouds overhead, for me to meet her future in-laws and the best man, David’s brother. As we drove up the sweeping gravel to a large Victorian pile, I could see a group playing croquet on the lawn.

Now I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was the kanga in the land of pheasants and stags. Have you guessed by now? David’s brother was Geoffrey, the best man.  I was at Stone House and about to meet my future husband.

It’s mothers’ day this weekend. And on Monday it is Book Club in London. But not after some country tonic.