A Long Lost Aunt Invites Me to the Savoy For a Drink

It was quite a surprise to get a call from Teflon Dad yesterday, to tell me that he is staying at the Savoy with my stepmother and his sister Pam, who is on a flying visit from Vancouver. Would I, together with Eco Brother like to join them for a drink at the American Bar at 5pm sharp?

Well of course!

I know very little about aunt Pam, or New Aunt, as I shall call her from now on, as my father, being historically Teflon coated has never been very keen on his sisters (he has loads and they are all quite mad). Over the years I have pieced together various bits of information to get a vague picture of them all. He has always been slightly keener on New Aunt than any of the others and as my stepmother has forged a close friendship with her, they have become quite close.

Eco Brother and I both convene in the lobby, agreeing that we usually prefer to avoid the West End on a Saturday evening. I would have added, `it's a bit too tunnel and bridges for me', but Eco Brother is an anarchist and might find that a bit too snobbish. But somewhere in his water I know he agrees with me.

It is certainly very hectic in the American bar, it's packed with all sorts, mainly tourists I imagine. Who else could face paying 30 quid for a glass of fizz? There is a choice of 27 champagnes served by the glass but mindful of Teflon Dad's horrendous bill I went for the house fizz, Louis Roederer.

New Aunt was a delight. She was celebrating her 70th birthday and like Teflon Dad looks very good for her age and is blessed with good, unlined skin. She was very easy to chat to and I could see was excited to meet her new niece and nephew for the first time. It's always so lovely to discover an amenable new rello, especially as you get older.

I was eagerly looking for familial similarities and she and Teflon Dad did look quite similar. They both had large square heads, steely blue eyes and strong jaws. Teflon Dad is as strong as an ox and New Aunt had the same robust quality. But they are essentially good eggs, decent and kind people.

My family are quite puritanical (they are Roundheads not Cavaliers) so I was disappointed they did not choose something from the famous cocktail list, which looked incredibly tempting. Eco Brother (definitely a Digger, to continue with the Civil War analogies) said he had a glass of wine the night before so didn't think he should have anothe one quite so soon afterwards so instead opted for a cup of tea, as did New Aunt. Teflon Dad had several G and T's (with Bombay Gin) and Stepmother had several glasses of white wine.

We all had a very jolly time indeed, despite fierce rows about Lady Thatcher (Eco Brother typically anti, Teflon Dad and me pro and New Aunt and Stepmother pretty keen too). What did poor Eco Brother do to be born into such a family of right wing capitalists?

As we were leaving the bar, Eco Brother gets into conversation with the waiter about the olives on the table. `Will you be able to give them to another customer or will they be thrown away?' The waiter predictably says they will be thrown away, at which Eco Brother and I shudder with the horror of Food Waste. I hastily pack up the biscuits that came with the tea and he pulls out an old plastic bag from his grubby rucksack and politely but firmly suggests that the waiter to tip the olives into it. The waiter looks quite aghast, but there is nothing he can really do. Eco Brother, for all his anarchist ways, is it must be remembered, son of Teflon Dad and a long line of Alpha people who are used to getting their way.

Afterwards, Eco Brother zoomed back to Notting Hill on his bike with his olives, and I went upstairs to check out the family's luxurious suite. Oh what heaven. I stayed at the Savoy years ago when it was rather moth-eaten, but the rooms are so much more comfortable now. Huge beds, elegant parquet flooring and a stunning view over the misty grey river and the London Eye. Truly I was a pig in clover.

We stayed up, chatting away till about 9pm before I called it a day. The emphasis is more on alcohol than food in my family so I was pretty starved. Poor stepmother has no appetite because of this wretched cancer. The morphine keeps her going and relieves the pain but she is so weak and hugging her goodbye was like hugging a bag of bones. Her mind is razor sharp and if you didn't know, you might well think there was nothing wrong at all.

But poor Teflon Dad is quietly devastated. But what can you do? What can you say? We talked about how she was feeling, how good the Macmillan nurses are... I'm glad we can discuss her cancer quite openly. It would be worse to push it under the table.

Life is so fleeting and so much time is spent worrying about stuff that in the long run is of no importance. She has loved my father for 35 years but they have only been married 3 years, when he finally realised how much he cared for her. Until then he had been busy at work and taking her for granted and playing the field.

It's ironic that it is only when he finally realises how much he loves her that he must face up to losing her.

A Mini-Break In Deepest Darkest Norfolk

We are currently in deepest north Norfolk, renting a lovely cottage in Cley on Sea. I usually go for ultra modern houses, (in my dreams I would inhabit a bright white cube with nothing in it but  a bed and a table for my laptop, my only other essential, a kettle, would be hidden in a secret cupboard).

So this 17th century cottage is a departure from the norm as it has quite small rooms and low ceilings, but it has been sympathetically modernised, as they say, and is painted in a daring Farrow and Ball palette.

I once painted my flat red on the advice of my feng shui consultant and occasional boyfriend, in an attempt to boost my career and everything else. It may have worked, I certainly had more commissions and was busier, but I am not a red person at all. I like misty blues and white and that's about it. This cottage has dark grey floorboards and daring mauve and dark brown walls, which sounds absolutely dreadful but is actually rather chic. It also has an updated 50's kitchen with marmoleum lino flooring which is an exact replica of kitchen flooring from the Festival of Britain.

Why do these sort of details lodge themselves in my holey brain when so much else of real value is forgotten?

Of course the dogs absolutely love being in the country (this is real country unlike Guildford, which as a surburban gel is my usual idea of country). As soon as they leapt out of the car they were rolling around the garden. I feel bad for keeping them cooped up in London. Yes they are walked by long-suffering Boyfriend on a Short Fuse 3 times a day, but it's not the same as being able to go outside through an open door from the kitchen at any time.

It is so peaceful. No traffic noise, no planes, no shouty people (apart from Boyfriend on a Short Fuse of course). Our little garden is quite secluded and overlooks a church. It is so serene.

Nutty goes from strength to strength. His tumour continues to shrink and he is able to eat and drink by himself. Truly it is a miracle.

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse absolutely loves it here too. He is researching PrimeLocation, as I write for cottages in the area. But I don't know.... though I love it here he is not at his best away from home as the change of scene can stress him out. He veers between being calm and relaxed to being irrascible and shouty.
He has enough Valium for a few more days, but what will he do when it runs out? His doctor refuses to give him anymore so I shall just have to resort to Dodgy Davey from EasyMedz on the Internet.

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This is an excerpt from my new book, Letting Go of the Glitz, one woman's struggle to live the simple life in Chelsea, just out in paperback and available from Amazon and about 3 bookshops.

Cancer Is Not a Death Sentence

Just back from Kilburn and 2 hours with the excellent Dr Han, the inscrutable Chinese accupuncturist. Her speciality is to spear your head with small needles which are wired together and attached to an electrical machine to give you tiny electric shocks. It's meant to help with `nerves' and I will let you know if it works tomorrow. I am not feeling very nervy as such but very wired, like my brain could run a marathon. Not a good thing late at night when you are trying to get to sleep.

Nutty is still progressing well. I bought a good chicken for him in Kilburn from a local butcher. I made sure it was British, went to a good school and was not the dreaded halal, these days you just never know. Though who knows if the butcher was telling me what I wanted to hear.... if I had been wearing a headscarf would his reply have been different?)

I was very interested to listen to the latest update from Dr Dressler, the dog cancer expert. He was discussing grief and how when we first have a cancer diagnosis for our dog we immediately think `that's it' and prepare for imminent death. He says;

`You know, it’s interesting when you look at the grieving process: there’s a different form of grief. And there’s interesting form of grief that happens before the event even is experienced. That means that we are anticipating something bad coming up and we start to become sad about it. And this form of grief can be completely overwhelming and incapacitating and many, many times when a guardian receives a dog cancer diagnosis from a Veterinarian, they will start to experience anticipatory grief before anything bad has really happened or anything that’s really significant in terms of the well-being of the dog. So it’s important to realize that in many, many cases we are experiencing grief for something that hasn’t even happened yet. We have abundant time and many cases were we can do so much good, where we can take proactive steps, where we can improve our life quality, where we can get increases in life span, and increases in life quality of our special family member and we don’t yet have to be experiencing the grief that accompanies with the departure of a pet.'

This was exactly my experience. I went into complete meltdown for weeks after Nutty's diagnosis and was a hysterical mess. I cried so much I have no tears left. Raw grief is an emotion I'd never felt before but in a way I'm grateful I've experienced it. It has made me more understanding of what most of us will go through but I hope I never have to go to that dark place again.

Nutty's Tumour Is Getting Smaller!

I hardly dare think, say or write this, but Boyfriend on a Short Fuse and I have both noticed that Nutty's tumour has shrunk by half.

Am I hallucinating?

But it really is smaller! It isn't bleeding any more and the horrible pus/mucus surrounding it has disappeared. He has a great appetite, eats as much poached chicken as I can feed him and has just polished off some lightly-cooked Alaskan salmon.

I am a great believer in miracles, in `making the impossible possible' (as our latest Buddhist campaign puts it), and now, it seems, I have proof of this.

After all, the word miracle wouldn't exist if humanity hadn't witnessed a few of them.

But I am determined not to get too effusive and Pollyanna-like about it all. As always, I take it day by day.

When Nutty was looking bad last week I was so desperate I prayed to Archangel Ariel (the archangel who heals and protects animals). The next day I noticed an improvement.

So the whole household now has a spring in it's step.

It's been a good day on all fronts. I finished editing an article for the Sunday Telegraph magazine, Stella, which should be out in a few weeks.
Then I bought a perfect dress that I'd been slathering over when it was in a shop window round the corner. Most unusually, I put it on and it fitted like a glove. It is a knee length, mid/navy blue woolen dress with a fitted top and a flared skirt. I am thinking it will be a perfect ensemble for funerals as well as drinks parties (I go to more of the former these days).

A good funeral outfit is so important. As a femme du certain age one can't reveal too much flesh or wear anything too bright or tight. However this dress is tight but because it is in demure navy blue it looks modest without being very modest at all.

I Love My Dog and my Dog Loves Me

I have just fed Nutty his dinner of lightly poached organic chicken (from M and S, I pray it is not halal - fifty percent of lamb is now halal in the UK, so under the cosh of Muslims have we become).

Talking of beastly halal, listen to this. At Christmas I met up with an old flatmate who I hadn't seen for over twenty years and we hit it off straight away, it was just like old times. We were chalet girls together in Crans Montana and had a wonderful time. We were both too lazy to ski and spent all day (after finishing our very cursory domestic duties) in the local patisserie, gorging on cakes and endless creamy cappuchinos. Result was we both staggered back to Blighty having put on a stone and bursting out of our cords. She married an old Etonian Welsh sheepfarmer and disappeared to a place called Mould in North Wales and I never saw her again. Neither of us were great at staying in touch, besides she disapproved of my decidely non-Etonian fiance (a good natured but socially insecure Geordie). But it was lovely, none the less, to reconnect with her and her lovely husband.

Now I have nothing against farming, but when her hitherto lovely husband said with a cold shrill laugh that he sold off his old ewes (knackered presumably after enduring endless births and having their lambs stripped away from them, again and again) to the halal abbatoir "they pay us really well", haw haw, " so why bloody not!" I inwardly shuddered.

My pal had insisted Boyfriend on a Short Fuse and I stay with them on the halal farm in Mould but I knew I never would. I mean, where is his loyalty to his stock? I guess I am very bourgeois, but where is the common decency it it? How desperate can they be for money that they sell these old girls off to some wretched abbatoir where they do not even get stunned before having their throats cut?

Poor old Teflon-dad is completely gutted because he has to close one of his factories in Surrey (which his father opened in the 1930's) because it has been losing two million pounds a year. But he has kept the place open for years, solely out of loyalty to his hard-working workforce who have stuck with him through thick and thin. Many other bosses would, and have, relocated to China or wherever the running costs are cheaper, but he refused to do this.

I am so proud to have him as a father, just imagine having my pal's husband as a rello? Thank God for great mercies, is all I can say.

I prayed to Francis of Assisi and Archangel Ariel, the patron saint of animals last week, and I must report that Nutty has been doing very well ever since. Part of me still holds out for a spectacular remission, or just for his mouth tumour to shrink a bit or not get any bigger. As it is, he is in fine fettle, eating like a trouper, taking his medicines and being his usual loving, sweet-natured, stoic self. We are so lucky to have this extra time with him to spoil him and show him our love.

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The Power Of The Dog

I am still really under the weather with a horrible virus that doesn’t seem to be letting up. I went to see my psychic nutritionist today so she could douse on what medicines I should be taking. Nothing I have tried so far is working and she suggested various other things that luckily I have at home, like zinc and some Dr Recweg homeopathic tinctures. I have cupboards full of this kind of stuff, it’s really like the Mind Body and Spirit exhibition in here.

She also reminded me about basic stuff like a good face steam under a towel with eucalyptus. I was going to, but I’m so tired I think I’ll just have a hot bath and read my compulsively readable Rod Steward autobiography. I asked her what the emotional trigger was for getting ill and we both thought it was the horror of dealing with Nutty’s cancer diagnosis…. I was crying solidly for 6 weeks and I know that had everything to do with me getting to a really low physical ebb.

Crying is exhausting. I am all cried out now, except when I am going to sleep and the full horror of what the poor little fellow is going through hits me and I start to worry about the inevitable result of it all. …. But to be fair, he is not suffering so much I don’t think. He is not in pain and is still eating well and wagging his tail quite a bit (except when I am syphoning his flax seed oil mixture that the vet recommended into his mouth. Flax seed oil has strong anti-cancer properties, there is masses of research about it online).

The last few days there has been quite a lot of bright red blood from his mouth, usually when he’s eating. We always have to have lots of tissue paper under his mouth to catch it. We wash out his mouth regularly with a dilution of hydrogen peroxide, which seems to have prevented his tumour from becoming infected.

I see him staggering around the flat, looking a little dishevelled, wobbly, glazed eyes and his bleeding mouth encrusted with blood and think, this is old age. Old age that is usually confined within old people’s homes and hospitals. But this slow decline towards death is what most of us will face. The papers and TV are full of bright, shiny, young, shouty people and we are insulated against the ravages of aging. I am witnessing nature, in my face, in my flat, in its raw and cruel state.

I hate it of course, but it is nature and there is nothing any of us can do about it. It makes me appreciate my health (when I am not bronchial of course), that I can run, nearly do the splits, hit a tennis ball hard. My body gives me no trouble or pain (she says sneezing).

 I read this lovely poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Robert Graves for the first time a few days ago. It made me think of Nutty, in all his radiant, tawny, golden glory, before he got ill.

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.   And here is my favourite dog poem, The Power of the Dog, by Rudyard Kipling, after which I named this blog (a tear in the heart is one of its lines). Read it and weep.     The Power of the Dog   There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie-- Perfect passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for a dog to tear. When the fourteen years which Nature permits Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet's unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find--it's your own affair-- But...you've given your heart for a dog to tear. When the body that lived at your single will, With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!); When the spirit that answered your every mood Is gone--wherever it goes--for good, You will discover how much you care, And will give your heart for the dog to tear. We've sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long-- So why in Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear? ................................ (Nutty has his own page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nutty.nutkin ) This is an excerpt from my new book, Letting Go of the Glitz, one woman's struggle to live the simple life in Chelsea, by Julia Stephenson just out in paperback and available from Amazon and about 3 bookshops.

The Daily Mail calls

Bit of a shock to wake up at 9.30am to find doorbell ringing with my long-suffering cleaner and a friend who I had invited to come and chant with me, clamouring to come in. Oh God, of course I knew clocks had gone forward but I hadn’t got round to changing my watch – it was actually 10.30am. Really, don’t these people ever sleep?!

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse was still snoozing; he has enough Prozac, Dequacaine, Valium and Night Nurse in his system to fell an army. Prozac, Dequacaine and Valium are OK but the Night Nurse has really done him in.

He still has a bad cold and I am desperately trying to keep him upright and functioning so he can fulfil his daily duties, the most important of which are taking the dogs out three times a day.

`You’re no use to me if you get ill!’ I shout sympathetically as I dole out his drugs.

`I never thought I would end up fifty-six and an unpaid dog walker’; he constantly grumbles as he assembles Nutty’s pram and clips on the two Tinies (bichon frises) leads.

Because of my early morning guest surge there was no time to feed the dogs. Nutty is rarely hungry first thing but the tinies are always starving. They are such lovely little dogs and accept that Nutty must come first when it comes to first dibs of the best food. They are still being fed well on Lily’s tinned food, the odd bit of raw chicken, eggs and left-overs. They will eat fresh apple and raw carrot as well as any cooked vegetable. I would like to give them a completely raw meat diet but it’s hard to get enough raw meat because it doesn’t go very far.

So, unlike Nutty, they will eat nearly everything, which is such a relief as poor Nutty does need quite a bit of coaxing and hand-feeding. I buy whole chickens from Daylesford and after they are roasted or poached I mix up with Lily’s chicken and spelt pouches. He prefers the latter to be honest, like Teflon-dad he was raised on tinned rubbish and turns his nose up at anything a bit new always going for anything processed.

……………………….

I had a strange email from an editor at The Daily Mail a few days ago.

Had I read about the engagement between Millie from Made in Chelsea and the Hackney rapper, Professor Green?

No I hadn’t, I didn’t admit. These luminaries only exist on the distant perimeters of my consciousness. (Shades of the judge who asked; `who are the Beatles?’ But we only have Freeview on the telly so I only watch news and property programmes and I only listen to Radio Two so I never hear rap music, only the rubbish that Jeremy Vine plays).

She went on to ask if I could write an article about the class differences between this happy pair, (I have in the past written endlessly about the thrill of dating a working-class boyfriend, aka Boyfriend on a Short Fuse).

My heart sank; I had a stinking cold and was trying to tempt Nutty with his chicken medley, so I really didn’t want to write about the same old, same old. And this Rapper from Hackney sounds quite posh, he probably went to Radley or something. And he is by all accounts very successful and not short of a few bob. So really the story of posh girl marries rich, successful man is as old as the hills. It doesn’t matter what class a man is, if he is rich these days all doors are open.

Unlike poor old Teflon-dad who in the fifties was refused an army commission because he wasn’t posh enough and made to feel lowest of the low by my baronet Grandfather because he was from the wrong side of the tracks. But saying that, I know more mixed race couples than I know mixed class couples. So class is still important when it comes to relationships.

Here's an excerpt from one of my articles about the delights of dating a working-class boyfriend.

`When the Sex in the City TV series first hit our screens in the late 1990s, like many of us I thought the gorgeous, powerful but ultimately unavailable Mr Big was the ideal man. But he and all those other romantic leads are nothing more than characters in a fantasy. It’s a great disappointment that Carrie ends up with Mr Big in the film—in the real world of course he would have ditched her for an 18-year-old Russian hooker/model. But maddeningly the myth is thus perpetuated for another generation.

It is a universal truth that men who are ‘good on paper’ just don’t live up to the promise in the flesh. Why aren’t girls taught essential facts like this in schools, along with how to wire a plug?

This is why I am so very appreciative that I am dating a builder with his treasure chest of vital life skills. Years of exposure to effete and impractical old Etonians, bankers and aristocrats have left me with breathless appreciation of his practical skills.  What use is it to me if my beau owns a county?  It’s far more useful if he can, like Boyfriend on a Short Fuse, assemble my flat pack filing cabinets from IKEA in under an hour. 

And while I don’t share his interest in football, the grunts and shrieks from the sofa when Arsenal play are far easier on the ear than the terrible shrieks one must endure at Glyndebourne. 

Luckily Boyfriend on a Short Fuse’s relatives are all in the building trade, so I now have access to tilers, wooden floor specialists, roofers, master carpenters - at sister-in-law rates. 

And these days I get driven around in style in a spacious white van rather than a cramped, jealousy-inspiring Porsche.  It’s all win, win, win. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I advise ladies looking for love this year to follow the example of a well-known soap star who whenever she was single reached for her Yellow Pages and organised for a series of quotes from builders, plasterers and plumbers, several of whom she went on to form lasting relationships with. Nobody seems to use the Yellow Pages any more but maybe it should stage a comeback as a lonely hearts directory.