It is that dreaded, bleached first week of the year. Mid-winter, foul weather, festivities over, nothing but bills to look forward to for a while. Contrary as ever, and having felt utterly depressed and bah-humbug for most of the holiday, right until today in fact, I am now buoyant with energy and fizz. (Oh, fizz, wish I could have some fizz... we're all supposed to be detoxing now, right?)
Yes, I have mildly resented the enforced jollity this year, and attended only a very select few social engagements during the festive season. The weather did not help: mild but damp and grey and not at all christmassy. Not that I really longed for last year's near-apocalyptic snowfall, but this was just too dull, and what to do with this winter's (faux) fur trend when you then suffocate in it?
I had a very last-minute invite to a black-tie dinner at Armoury House in the City. The main enticement (something that most well-adjusted people would consider vaguely offensive) was that I would be replacing a guest who couldn't make it. You see, this person happened to hold the title of Princess. Not anyone you would have read about in Hello, much more exciting and exclusive than that, a mysterious Russian Princess. So my place card would say "Princess"... you can see where this is going.
So it was, out of the jodhs and wellies and into a long, scarlet satin gown with a fishtail - ancient, a bit worn at the edges having survived a savage hunt ball, and from a predictable high street shop, but always a hit. And I was channelling 1907 emigree aristocracy in distress, after all. I managed a very impressive DIY up-do with a small, sparkly, vintage accessory that was reminiscent of a tiara without straying into fancy dress territory. Result! Princessy behaviour comes naturally, so the rest was a doddle. There was much dancing, and later we gatecrashed another party round the corner, where my non-prince husband was attending and my carriage, if I'd had one, would have turned into a pumpkin. The modern, post-feminst Cinderella keeps hold of her shoes and, on the stroke of midnight, acquires a husband and a clutch of drunken friends with whom to carry on partying. As ever, unplanned outings often turn out to be the most fun.
The Boxing Day meet, of course, is in a category of its own, and I would not have missed it for the world. In my third season now, this was my first mounted Boxing Day (last year was scuppered because of all the ice, hunting on foot is just not the same). I had to down several glasses of port (above my regulation medicinal two), so as not to think too much about the fact that this was my first outing on the Very Large Mare after The Tumbles. It did the trick, I was suitably relaxed and had a cracking day in which we did not part company. In spite of her being full of... shall we say, festive cheer. Well, one of us had to.
So everything is fine in my world again.
