Outfits Went to Somerset

Friday 22nd December 2017

Merle and I gained my inn after a gruelling journey from the Capital. She was to lodge in the actual Fern Willis residence with Angus, Fergus, Archie and Cloudless. In my room at the inn there was a bath and the loo roll styling was a lav paper flower inserted into the top of each one. Drinks in the bar came with free roast potato and Yorkshire pudding snacks. Merle said she didn’t like black pudding which was the third option. We motored on to Fern’s. Archie and Cloudless had already arrived. They’d acquired a new hearse to convey all their purchases. ‘It’s extraordinary how it fills up,’ Cloudless said. Angus and Fergus were still in the Marylebone Road. Blood pressure was mounting, but Fern pressed on with her curry supper. In the middle of it, Angus and Fergus crashed through the door. Their average speed from London was 120 mph. Archie attacked Fern’s hanging light over the table: too harsh. Incredible curry supper with so many dainty extras. Fern had planned everything with loving care. After dinner Fern’s husband played German military music on his computer very loudly and Fergus went mental.

The main idea was to make as much noise as possible and exercise no restraint whatsoever as to wording or mood. Somebody said, ‘Don’t mention Brexit.’ So it mentioned and there was more raving and Fern’s husband gave as good as he got. Really they might just as well have flung buns about the room.

The next morning, after my night in the Lord Poullet Arms (self-toast at breakfast), I came upon them all screaming at Fern’s husband in the kitchen: ‘Turn the heating up.’ He did nothing of the kind. We left him to the Telegraph crossroad and went roaring round Bridport antique market. Angus acquired some frightful old milk churns. As Merle pointed out, Fern’s great gift is to nose out things that Angus will like. There was quite a lot of questing for bashed-up old bits of metal all over Bridport in the end. At the indoor antique fayre, Archie and Cloudless acquired a Deco tea-set without once mentioning the vagina.

We were almost late for lunch. It was Soho House by the sea or something like that. There was absolute witheration for the replacement windows at the Clubhouse. I thought it was nice: airy and light. But no, the replacement windows were a disgrace. After a classic white wine, zero calories London lunch (except at Burton Bradstock) we walked on the beach. Nature came in for less of a bashing. In fact Archie went quite lyrical over the loveliness.  It was lovely. You may remember I was on that coast a few years ago with the Gay Mother. Golden Cap was quite golden in the dying light of day. The great thing is the countryside comes right down to the cliff edge – none of that ghastly waste land you often get behind beaches.

Then it was on to the pub where Miss Miracle works temporarily to see what harm could be done. She’s the Fern daughter and much admired. In Bridport we’d also visited her exhibition of sculpture. Luckily there was nobody there in the pub. It was tea-time. But no cream tea. Only a huge dog that needed washing. ‘Is this a Gay pub?’ Archie bellowed, just as the owner was coming in to ask who had parked their car in the electric car re-charging bay. It was me, Adrian Edge. I’d parked in the electric car re-charging bay. So I suppose I’d done the most harm. Because the point of the electric car re-charging bay was that the owner had an electric car, a Mercedes in fact. But Archie was right in a way because the owner didn’t like the idea of his pub being a Gay Pub.

Finally the Gays re-occupied the Fern residence. Fern’s husband’s period of autonomy in his own home was over. Dinner was ordered to be served a different room from the night before because of the hanging light which wasn’t liked. Merle and Fern slaved in the kitchen, while Archie remarked in the drawing room (he was in pink and red) that once a person has caught the flavour of the vagina there’s no going back. He referred to the daughter of some friends of his who had turned Lesbian. Her parents had wondered if she would ever resume heterosexuality.

Fern served a superb ham dinner in a different room.  Then we had her quiz: guessing who people were in photos. The next day we went to Stoke Abbott, where my prep school friend, Tom Sweet-Escott came from. I visited there in the 70s one August. I can’t now remember how I got there from the Far West but somehow I did, unaccompanied and barely 11, I should think. We found the Manor House where he lived and I discoverd later from Googling that both his parents are dead and he is a hedge-fund manager. I haven’t seen or heard of him since 1970. We drew very large cars with Rolls Royce radiator grills endlessly – but seating for hundreds.

Lyme Regis was our final stop. Fergus and Angus were stoking each other up all over lunch about a set of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1911 Fergus wanted to buy from a second-hand bookshop there. They were quite calm in the fossil shop before. Then we walked on the Cobb and got hooked up trying to get close-up photos of a sea-bird. Fergus was still fuming quietly re: the encyclopedia. Angus also took photos which he later made look old-worlde with Snapseed. But I was pleased with my fashion look – the very old Paul Smith coat in herringbone tweed, the new Zara slacks in chestnut cord, and the APC cream jumper (that subsequently got shrunk: the cords are also being a nightmare, but that’s another story. So a great photo but two of the pieces now in crisis: irony).  Anyway on the Cobb I was angular, I had a silhouette. Merle and I went back to fetch my Official Car but we were ordered by text to go round another way because Angus had suddenly bought a whole lot of fish and had to collected at once. I was in meltdown: fish-water in my boot: I might have to throw the Official Car away. Like that time the Gay Mother upset a bottle of Jeyes Fluid in that mini. She loathed Jeyes anyway. We always had Dettol, which was considered a cut above. She only had the Jeyes – something to do with the Church.

Fern offered a tremendous farewell celebration dinner complete with some neighbouring lesbians who’d protected the Queen. Policewomen.

Lord Poulett Arms: Bath in Room

Lord Poulett Arms: Bath in Room

Lord Poulett Arms: Toilet Paper styling

Lord Poulett Arms: Toilet Paper styling

Miss Miracle: Her Sculpture

Miss Miracle: Her Sculpture

Angus Willis : Bridport Purchases

Angus Willis : Bridport Purchases

Soho House by the Sea or Whateves

Soho House by the Sea or Whateves

The Sea Coast: Lovely

The Sea Coast: Lovely

Fern's Ham Dinner

Fern’s Ham Dinner

Angus Willis: Purchases: Different Angle

Angus Willis: Purchases: Different Angle

Archie Hurling on Sofa

Archie Hurling on Sofa with Cloudless

Stoke Abbott: Where my Friend from Prep, Tom Sweet-Escott Lived

Stoke Abbott: Where my Friend from Prep, Tom Sweet-Escott Lived

Sea-Bird Photo Competition: Lyme Regis

Sea-Bird Photo Competition: Lyme Regis

 

 

 

 

Posted Friday, December 22, 2017 under Adrian Edge day by day.

4 comments

  1. Harry Rollo says:

    Lovely picture of a turnstone in the Sea-BIrd Photo Competition.

  2. Adrian Edge says:

    Thank you for your identification

  3. Angus willis says:

    Battered bits now recontextualised and installed at rare prices in Hastings

  4. Adrian Edge says:

    Well done, Angus!

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