Day five
By now I know the layout and workings of the hotel and have established my routine which one would hardly term taxing.
It depends on your expectations and priorities and all I wanted, after a festive period which proved not so festive, was “me time”.
Thus I read, walk the beautiful gardens, swim in the indoor pool and ruminate.
At the bar and restaurant almost everyone has a mobile phone. It’s less a sign of the time, more a life-support machine. If’ the other diners consider me at all, it’s probably with bemusement sitting there in a corner on my own.
Yet I relish the time to ponder on many things. Those that passed away in January; my mother, my best friend at university and this month the sister of close friend whose family I have known for 50 years.
I wonder how the Royals will be affected by the twin crises of Andrew and the Sussexes wanting independence from the ‘Firm’.
There does not seem to be an upsurge of republican support but you hear dark talk of what happened last time with an American divorcee.
Harry and Meghan are suing newspapers and Andrew may still be dragged into an American court over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The “Firm ‘is resilient and many – including the the most powerful of leaders’ – greatest ambition is to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
She is still popular in the Commonwealth.
Court cases are brought in her name, ER appears on post boxes, the Royal Warrant, the state dinners, Head of the Church and State.
Unless they self-destruct this will be hard to un-stitch.
But the Queen is 93 and can Prince Charles or William handle all this with her deftness ?
Of all this I thought as my fellow diners obviously found matters of greater interest within their mobile.
I am impressed by the high standards of amenity and service in the hotel. However at 2.00 am the lights failed completely as apparently the card to activate them had run out of juice.
I yearned for the days of the overhead light activated by a switch. However, like heavy brass room keys with a golden thread, secured in a cupboard behind the concierge, this is a thing of the past.
