It is a momentous day. I have written for 100 days, with weekends off. My mother, Beverley, is my greatest fan. The first thing she does, when she wakes up, is to read the diary.

Yesterday’s Tea and Concert for Older People was a success. Tables were laid for 400 people, and all the sandwiches, handmade by volunteers in the morning, vanished within minutes. The event is completely run by volunteers and a few HTB church staff.

I was in charge of the clear up operation. Almost everything is taken to the back of the church when the guests depart; then it is sorted and sent on to one of four kitchen areas for cleaning and packing.

Cups are rinsed and sterilised in an industrial machine, and then they are packed into crates (Geoff, my husband, mercifully turned up to help with this); three-tier cake stands are dismantled and washed up and stored (my sister-in-law, Susie, mercifully led this); saucers are washed and packed away in crates and the remaining items are dealt with at the back of the church (my friend, Mrs Wonderful, mercifully led this).

We managed to be done in an hour and a half. I love to trouble-shoot, aiming for a steady flow of dirty stuff to one of the four stations from the mother-station (my little empire).

Manning the mother-station appeals to my OCD tendencies. It is an embarrassing admission to make, but I like cleaning; I like sorting. If I am stressed, I clean and sort the house. I declutter. If my environment is neat and tidy, I feel neat and tidy. My neat streak is ironic, given that I drove Bev crazy with my untidiness as a child and teenager.

The one place that I did not try to sort too much was Corn Close cottage in the Cotswolds. It was tiny, so you had to live with a bit of mess. And most of the time in the day, we were out and about. We would ride bikes up and down the lane. We would pick the wild blackberries. Or we were in the garden. The children spent hours in the paddling pool or climbing trees.

 

We we would go fruit picking. We would go to one of the yellow-stone towns and have afternoon tea. We would go up to Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of Shakespeare, and walk amongst the white and black Tudor houses. We visited National Trust properties nearby. We would go to Hidcote Manor Gardens near Chipping Camden. The garden is divided into rooms by large hedges, and you walk through ‘doorways’ and find, yet another, unique planting creation or pond. The rooms are linked by long avenues with stunning pastoral views at the end: fluffy white sheep in green fields.  Alternatively, Snowshill Manor and Garden had wonderful views from its perch. You drive through limitless golden wheat-fields in the summer to reach it. Bridget Jones diary was partially filmed in the village. In this bigger landscape, I could hop around for miles like a kangaroo. I didn’t bump into fences.

I am so grateful that after the Stone House years when I first married Geoff, followed by a brief interlude in the Cotswolds midway, that I have found my way to Hampshire on the border with West Sussex. It is beauty personified. I have enjoyed hopping everywhere I can manage from the sea to the downs. And over to Nicky Barber, who is like a sister, at her farm in Winchester.

Today I will get ready for the Chancellors’ (our tennis partners from Hurlingham) visit to the Old Rectory. The driveway is full of weeds, and I shall gouge them out.