Our final breakfast in The Fox and, for the first time, it was a busy one. It was market day in Pipping Porton and there were a number of people simply walking in for breakfast.
Sadly, there was no one I recognised and so my celebrity count for the entire trip would end on zero.
I had the Eggs Benedict, with an added Cotswold sausage on the side, and jolly good it was too.
We were checked out and on the road by 10.15am. The drive across country was not great, as expected, especially in what was at times heavy rain. This, coupled with the roundabout capital of the world – Milton Keynes – made it all quite tiring.
The plan was to break up the drive with a visit to the Wimpole Estate, between Royston and Cambridge, another National Trust property we had never visited.
It had the most enormous car park and, as we pulled into it, the rain mercifully stopped. It was another long walk to get anywhere, which turned out to be a very large stable block where the bookshop was located. I was allowed to browse and purchased a vintage copy of A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young.
We walked around the outside of the house but had no inclination to go inside and instead headed to the rather nice café, where we sat outside on the sun-trap terrace. It was all rather pleasant and felt just like being on holiday.
As we were in no rush, we wandered to the walled garden which, in keeping with everything else on the estate, was huge and quite lovely.
The last inhabitants (apart from the war years, when the house was requisitioned for military purposes) were the family of Rudyard Kipling. His daughter, Elsie Bambridge, purchased the estate through the income from his writings before eventually handing it to the National Trust. It made me wonder whether my descendants will do the same with our house and open it to the public. People could marvel at my ‘collections’ and the modern innovations I have introduced, as well as Karen’s colour schemes.
And with that, the Cotswold trip was over as we drove the final leg back to Norwich. As someone far wiser than me once said, “There’s no place like home.”
One final yarn. On my ‘bucket list’ remains the desire to be an extra in a film or TV series — someone in the background, drinking tea or whatever.
Many of you will know the ‘near misses’ I have had over the past few years, from being put forward as a ‘goblin’ or something in the Harry Potter prequels (I couldn’t attend the costume fitting at the Leavesden studio due to holidays), to last year’s offer as a ‘hand double’ (my hand was rejected at the last moment).
I have now just turned down the opportunity to apply to be the ‘star’ in an advert for an online game being filmed in Sweden. The game is called ‘Barrel Man’ and the filming involved me being a barrel for a week. I still get the giggles thinking about the attributes that apparently made me suitable for such a role.
I declined to apply as I was fairly sure I could manage to climb, with assistance, into a barrel — but was far less convinced they would be able to get me out again without industrial equipment and a small team of Swedish engineers.
So for now, my Hollywood career remains frustratingly on hold — though I remain open to offers that involve tea, dignity, and preferably no wooden costumes.
Just three weeks until the next trip. California Dreaming….
