Thursday 18th August 2022

Despite all the wrong, all the criminality of the last three years, Normandy has never failed. Rogue forms, random bandit confinements, criminal assaults by the state on the throats of Poor Little Rich Gays  – nothing has deterred us.

Normandy has gone on as always. This year the Lairds gained and, being severely anti-Brexit, carried no meat products, in particular the Laird’s terrine special which used to be nearly a meter in length, studded with juniper berries and sent out from the kitchen to every repast of the Norman sojourn with enough remaining at the end for freezing and other destinations.

Let it not be said that the Wrong has worn us down. We have not aged. It was the heat and natural causes. True to say, two of our party are temporarily compromised between the legs. Their functions have given up for the time being. As I remarked to Laura Malcolm just before Beamish O’Halloran’s birthday-party-with-pre-lecture-by-the-Laird-on the Bayeux-Tapestry -‘the endless flushing lavatories of the elderly.’

But that’s not us! We’re still fresh, we’re still lively. Hall, an English Norman friend living nearby, is confined to a wheelchair. She’s broken her ankle so there’s hope she’ll get out. Even so – the look!  There was a chance to make off with her as she sat, in the wheeled chair, in a cafe in Bernay. But her son said, ‘The brake’s on.’ But what if it had not been?

Moira McMatron herself was questionable as to whether even alive each morning.  At 11 her suite was still shrouded and unstirring. No hint of life. But it’s her daintiness that keeps her from rising. And when she does she’s so fairy-like and floaty, for sure were you to release her hair clip she would at once disintegrate, like a dandelion blown by a kiddie.

We developed a routine of rosé at luncheon followed by conked out in the chairs – see below. Plans were made then yawned off. What a mercy, though, we couldn’t be bothered with the cheese-eating competition at Liverot. I fear I would not have remained poised. In fact I would have vom-ed.

Moira McMatron – Her Suite Still Shrouded at 11a.m. Possibly She Had Not come Through the Night

The Loungers Lined Up in Normandy