30th December
Spencer gave the Bentley a quick polish and we set off early to visit the West Country branch of the Halt family (Spencer’s brother). You might have heard of Tyntesfield, which is a spectacular Victorian country house now owned by the National Trust. Well I wouldn’t be giving away too many secrets if I said that they live very near there. Although it isn’t as big as Paulet Manor, it is very well kept indeed, and I mentioned to Spencer, it made me feel that we should perhaps be thinking in 2009 about doing a little more in the way of decoration at the Manor. Spencer couldn’t see what I meant, but they do have a beautiful kitchen and the one at the Manor is in desperate need of refurbishment.
31st December
Today is the day when we traditionally throw a party at the Manor for the Northern branch of the Paulet family. I was up early to polish the silver, and supervise the preparation of the lunch and buffet tea. I was all ready at 11.30 and turned the Aga on. Imagine my dismay then, when nobody had arrived by 1pm. I rang them up to find out that they hadn’t even set off from Luton! They had thought that they were just coming for the evening to see the New Year in. All my preparations had been in vain, and most of the lunch was ruined. At least the staff had a good nosh.
My guests did arrive later on in the evening, well wrapped up against the cold, and I put a brave face on it as we played charades in the drawing room. I encouraged Marcus to keep the fire well tended, as they do seem to feel the cold rather, and the central heating at the Manor is still giving trouble. Spencer did let slip that he had warned them about the heating problem, and I did wonder if this is what had made them late in arriving. They left at about 12.30am after we had toasted the New Year in with a couple of bottles of Champagne from the cellar. We all made our New Year’s resolutions ( and I had quite a few this year) followed by a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne.
1st January 2009
We spent the day quietly eating up the considerable amount of left-over food. The northern branch of the family are not big eaters. I though at least we could have seen the back of the left-over turkey and gammon from last week. It has all gone now though, along with all the sausage rolls, pork pies, mince pies and Christmas cake.
I tackled Spencer about what we are going to do for our Silver Wedding this year. (This is one of my resolutions). For some reason he seemed less than enthusiastic, and said that it was a long way off yet, and mumbled something about maybe not making it to 25. I pointed out that it was only 6 months away and if we wanted caterers and a marquee, then we need to be booking them now. Spencer looked aghast. I told him in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t just get away with a pub lunch and a bunch of flowers this year. On reflection it was probably not a good time to mention that I had already purchased my outfit for the big event using Spencer’s credit card. I had rather hoped that it would get “lost in the noise” of the Christmas overspending. I kept quiet.