Wednesday 30 March 2011

Spring Cleaning at Buckingham Palace

In the run up to the most discreet nuptials ever conducted, I'm seriously concerned that this curious bash will stir the Met into decisive action over my work walk short cut by the palace. Every morning I fear today will be the day. 

Buck Pal Fountain: Subtle Imperial Iconography
It was when I first observed the pre-wedding buffing of the (already clean) bronze sculptures outside Buckingham Palace that I realised my fence gap's days were numbered.

You see, BOF and I had a dinner party the other night. As we prepared, I realised I'd absorbed MD’s attitude to entertaining. [Yes, dear reader, I'm about to contrive a comparison of MD to the Queen: bear with me.] Back in the countryside if guests were coming I would be enlisted to help with polishing, table-laying, hoovering, pot-plant-reorganisation - that sort of thing. No matter that the upstairs cupboard would have no part in the proceedings (unless confused guests got lost perhaps), no corner was left unmolested.


So at the Pad this week, I got crazy with the hoover MD-wise, while BOF constructed deliciousness. At some point I decided a cake was necessary - then threw flour all over the place before conducting an inept floor clean and forgetting the actually visible expanses of carpet. Twenty minutes before our guests were due to arrive, I realised that the sitting room [sorry - The Dining Room today] furniture needed moving. Too worried that BOF would try and talk me out of my labour-intensive completely unnecessary new room plan, I threw sofas about by myself for fifteen minutes

In the end, the room looked - frankly - exactly the same. I'd had little or no impact - other than to traumatise BOF enough that he poured almost an entire extra bottle of wine into the coq au vin.

Back at the Palace (Liz's, not ours), fountain-cleansing has been going for about a month now, all sweat and comedy brow-rubbing from the workers to indicate endeavour. As I walked past last week, protective wooden crates around the statues were being removed to show that ... nothing had changed. The marble supports were perhaps a little more water-stained, but that was it.
Alas, shocker - no pics of Queenie plus
Mids Senior to be found. Nice plate-hat though
What happened was this: one day Queenie was sitting up in the palace with Mrs M observing the outrageous dullness of the bronze statues from the window. ‘Something must be done, Mids’, she doubtless said. So it was. The impact is less than marginal, but that’s not the point.

Like MD in the countryside awaiting her guests, or BOF and Kate in the Pad, having people over requires manic and obvious commitment to cleanliness. Bess knows this. She knows about dear Sarkozy's eagle eye for discoloured bronze and Princess Leitiza of Spain's disgust for gappy fences. Forget the Olympics, this Big Sloane Send-off is the Queen's house party including dinner with six courses. My poor wonky fence doesn't stand a chance.

Next Episode: Goodbye Childhood Home - The Conclusion

1 comment:

  1. Glad you are back. By which I mean glad I am back. Wondered what I had been up to of late.

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