Yesterday I went to the Botticelli at the V & A with Gill, my Sheila friend, in London. Had a cuppa and shared a carrot cake (we both needed the comfort) at the stunning Victorian tiled café. I wanted to see the Birth of Venus – I love the shell, but it wasn’t there. A lot of Madonna and Child and two Venuses with no background. The heavy gilt frames were works of art in themselves. The V & A is a haven and is my go-to place if I am upset, along with Hurlingham. Many times, if it was raining and dull, I would head to this treasure trove and wander for hours amongst the ceramics, silver, jewellery, interior installations, glass, textiles, sculptures, clothes, paintings, objets d’ art – and always a cuppa. The pond in the Italian style courtyard is tranquil in the sunshine.

Today, I had a thank you letter from another Hon., Hugo’s godmother, Ghislaine. She and her husband, Peter, another lawyer, came for dinner recently. They live in Scotland now. Her mother was Belgian and her brother is a peer. Ghislaine was/is part of the Gang. Most of the Gang are still around.

Geoff worked out, and I worked out pretty quickly, that we didn’t want to be apart and two months after Susan and David’s wedding, he proposed in a Chelsea restaurant called the English Garden near Sloane Square, the centre of the Sloane world and obviously from where Sloanes derive their name. Ghislaine was an angel in the early years and guided me through the terrain of being a Sloane wife. She realised pretty quickly that I was a lousy cook and bought me a cook book, which I still use. She led by example. If she sent me a thank you card it was on headed cream paper and the script was from a blue fountain pen. I observed how to entertain. How to talk to the man on your left during first course and then switch during main. And she was KIND. Is KIND. She is indeed aristocratic, but she has a natural, noble nature. Her husband, Peter, was a firm supporter too. He used to sing Seekers (Australian band) songs to me. “Train, whistle, blowing…” from “Morningtown Ride”. He was a hot shot solicitor and I looked up to him enormously. He was the youngest person appointed to the Takeover Panel back then.

Not long after I was married Ghislaine asked if I’d like to have tea with her brother at the House of Lords. This is over 25 years ago, so he was a pretty young baron and his star had just started its ascent. I accepted of course. I adored all that history stuff. The date was set. And then, because I was hopeless at running my diary (Sloanes are sewn to their diaries –something I had to learn), I forgot that my best Uni mate, David McElveney, was coming to stay. In typical Kanga form, I rang and asked if he could come too. I can’t believe in retrospect that I had the cheek to ask. It didn’t occur to me that this was not the done thing – what Sloanes think of as very non-U, meaning  Non-Upper Class, ie, bad manners. Ghislaine was of course gracious and said, “Marvellous.”

Of course, when David arrived on the morning of the actual trip to the Houses of Parliament, he was as excited as me at the prospect of having tea at the House of Lords. But he was back packing. No suit. And he was not the same size as Geoff, so off we went and bought a suit from M & S and that afternoon we were both cleared through security and finally sipping tea with Thomas and Ghislaine.

Today I am having lunch with my sister in law, Susan Wilmot. And then dinner at my old neighbours in Elms Crescent, Clapham, where we lived until we moved to Chelsea.