I know that ordinary people who have to catch the eight-twenty to Waterloo every day envy our leisure but frankly most of the time our lives are a battle against boredom.
And it’s certainly not easy doing nothing all day. For one thing it isn’t always easy keeping that stiff upper lip in the face of royal relatives, lunatic suitors, and dead bodies. Being almost royal isn’t always a piece of cake.
It should have been of contentment but actually it was one of boredom. It was about the most perfect afternoon one could wish for, one of those rare English summer days when the only sounds are the buzzing of bees among the roses, the clickety-clack of a distant lawn mower and the thwack of ball on bat at the cricket match down in the village. Before me was a tea table, groaning under tiers of cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, strawberries and cream, éclairs, Victoria sponges, petit fours and scones with clotted cream. Behind me the stately battlements of Kingsdowne Place, seat of the dukes of Eynsford, were reflected in the perfect mirror of the lake, its surface ruffled only by a pair of gliding swans.
I was sitting in a white wicker chair under a spreading chestnut tree on a manicured lawn. Dear Diary: Weather fine but absolutely nothing to do.
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