Country life
Pressure points
Leanda de Lisle
It's difficult to build up an extensive net- work of baby-sitters in the country, and, as the regular nannies like to party on New Year's Eve, those of us with young children spend the evening slumped on a sofa at home. I can't say I'm sorry. Christmas Day reminds me of a war zone, with crackers exploding, fingers tearing through wrap- ping-paper like machine-gun fire, men shouting orders, children screaming and women hurrying about purposefully. After the noise and chaos, all I want is peace and quiet. In any case, everything about New Year is so utterly hateful. I loathe being forced to stay up until midnight. I'm thor- oughly depressed by the glass of cham- pagne when the bell tolls and I'm terrified by the frightful pressure to think about self- improvement. If there is one moment in the year when I need a cigarette it is at five past midnight on New Year's Day.
Half the population of the county avoid- ed New Year altogether by fleeing abroad, and I'm going away myself as soon as the school holidays are over. The shooting sea- son has another month to run and the hunting season another two and a half, but the icy, damp January weather is so appalling that only the most dedicated sportsmen would want to spend any time out of doors. As for staying inside ... The Christmas decorations are coming down, leaving the house looking as bare as a beech tree in winter. (Although, if one must be grateful for small mercies, I sup- pose I should be thankful that the Lottery winner next door will also be bringing down the electric sleigh and reindeer cur- rently attached to his gates.) Rats have died in our pipes and all my favourite tele- vision comedy series have come to an end. I suppose that I could take the opportunity to try to educate myself, but the Gitta Sere- ny paperback I wanted for Christmas has such small print that I have to wear two pairs of glasses to read it and I start feeling queasy after a few pages. Which reminds me, I've had another birthday and I'm another year closer to the grave.
When I'm dead I want to be buried in a tomb with a glass panel over my face, like my cousins in County Sligo. It's not good for us to keep the dead out of sight and out of mind. But I think my husband's desire to be buried in the hall, if he predeceases me, is taking things too far: he would make the house smell even worse than it does at the moment. Not that he cares. On the con- trary, he is hoping that it would put off any potential suitors for my hand. Frankly, I don't know what he's worried about. All his family live to be a million years old. His Aunt Isabelle recently announced to a waiter in Lima, 'I'm a hundred and one and a virgin.' To which he replied, 'There's still time, senorita' — and, knowing Aunt Isabelle, I'd say that is truer than he realised. I'd guess that she has at least another 20 years to find Mr Right.
Burial plans aside, my chief source of pleasure at the moment is watching the progress we are making decorating the library. Our predecessors left us with pur- ple-brown bookcases and hand-blocked, squirly green and orange wallpaper which must have been the height of chic in the early Seventies, but was beginning to look tired (even agonised) by the time we moved in. So, as the gardener doesn't have much to do in the garden at this time of year, she's being paid to slosh the room with gallons of National Trust paint. When she's finished, I'm going to move my desk from my dressing-room to a corner of the new library. The walk downstairs (and up again to bed) should at least double the amount of exercise I take, which will, I sup- pose, be a kind of New Year self-improve- ment. Otherwise, my only ambition for the next 12 months is to save enough money so that I will be able to spend next January abroad as well.
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