Scandal on the 18th?

Arrived back in London last night after a weekend away at M's parents in Shropshire. Had a mad blitz on the flat; building a bookcase and filling it with books, sorting out the mountain of M's 'spare' clothes which came wrapped in a sheet from his old house, getting rid of boxes of junk etc. The flat is starting, finally, to look like a home. Now all we need are some curtain rings that are in one piece so that the curtains stay up.

The weekend was a relaxing break; we played lots of golf and ate lots of nice food. M won a prize in the charity golf tournament and I won 3 bottles on the tombola. Including one of Bailey's which I intend to give Alexandra when she heads university way. She is back next week and I cannot wait. I have even booked the day off work.

And speaking of golf clubs, the place rather than the means of play, I spent two hours sitting in the clubhouse, sheltering from the rain and people watching. I think I should write a book - a sort of Jilly Cooper style novel of the golfing world. Watching the people of the golf club is like watching a channel 4 documentary. You know that people like that exist, it's just you've never met them. This is not a reflection on M's parents, as I genuinely think that they are outside this generalisation, but some of the people there were like caricatures. It was the worst mix of suburbia and money; vaguely wealthy people with no idea of style or etiquette beyond that demanded by the golf world. Admittedly, a scandal had just broken (a husband and someone else's wife had just run off together) so the gossiping was perhaps more prevalent than usual, but everyone needed to put in their two pennies worth. Watching their interaction was fascinating - the hierarchies drawn and indicated in a less than subtle fashion of cheek kissing or, worse, (those damp feeble) handshakes (favoured by certain age ladies); the social groups and the in-jokes. And the outfits.

That said, a lot of people were very kind and made me feel very welcome. It was interesting which of these were friends of M's parents.