Deer Park Cottage, Norfolk.
Gentling & reading to Mozart flute & string quartets. View from FT reading table:
Back door:
By the back door, an ace conservatory built in 1876:
Yesterday evening's birthday party was a stunner. Some 160 guests began arriving at an 18th. century English country house to an Alice In Wonderland theme, mingling over champagne in woodland with a young female violinist performing over pre-recorded tracks from a G4 Powerbook. Luxury portaloos, playing classical music when a guest entered, set a new standard in outside evacuation.
Then to dinner, behind the columns of the house & covered areas in front of the house. For the first time at a social event in England, in my lifetime, three adjacent dinner guests were not only familiar, but well acquainted, with my work.
Dinner followed by short & wonderful speeches, then the firework display before cabaret -- Tiny Willcox. Yesterday evening T offered to (as used to be said) do a turn at the party & her invitation was accepted. So, the warm-up act for the disco (as T introduced herself) powered up the post-midnight hour with It's A Mystery, guests drawn up to perform air guitar on Sweet Child Of Mine, and River Deep Mountain High as the closer (my favourite -- a stomper & future Toyah classic).
We left at 00.35 with the disco just about to get underway. A superb, wonderful evening.
22.10 Sunday lunch at the estate inn & onto Chelsea-on-Sea (aka Burnham Market) for tea. Croquet on the lawn with our birthday pals & then back to Deer Park Cottage for supper.
