The facade is quite grand, but if you look closely you can see signs of retrenchment

Sunday afternoon. After the usual big lunch (roast pork this week) I was not all that keen on going out anywhere, but I had arranged to meet Helen Blakeman over on the other side of the escarpment at half-past three, so I had to forego my usual sleep in the armchair. After a quick cup of tea I locked up the house (my brother had taken the dog on a long walk) and walked across the garden and into the old farmyard where I park my car.

In last few weeks a pair of house sparrows had built a nest in the rafters of the old shed where my car is parked, leaving a mess each day over the roof and windscreen. The eggs in the nest hatched, producing a noisy clutch of baby sparrows – they looked out nervously whenever I went into the building. Sunday afternoon however, the nest was empty, with the young sparrows flitting around outside (it was a bit sad they had gone, even though my car will be a lot cleaner from now on).

After a cold start the day had become extremely hot, the sunlight falling heavily onto the landscape, desiccating all living things and making energetic movement impossible. A drive of about fifteen miles, and then round by the internal cliff, trying to find a way through to the edge (not as easy as it sounds, and at one point I drove down to the foot of the escarpment and looked back up, trying to work out where I needed to go). Eventually I found the little by-lane that led to the gates, and after paying £2 (no thank-you from the haughty person in tweed jacket collecting the money) went into the demesne.

Parking my car under some trees (next to a Rolls Royce) I immediately saw Helen Blakeman sat in her car nearby, the car door open to relieve the heat of the day. Apart from our two cars and the Rolls Royce there were only about twenty other vehicles in the clearing, implying that the Open Day was not well attended. I had heard that the estate was open from Mrs Bambridge in the village shop, and had suggested going there to Helen as it would be a cheap trip out (not that I desperately need to economise, but having just been made redundant I thought it wise to cut down a little).

We walked along a path and came out of the trees and into the blazing sunlight immediately finding ourselves on the edge of the cliff, with sweeping views for miles across the plain. We went along to the front of the house (built close to the cliff edge) and then into the garden that led off to the side. We discussed my impending redundancy and Helen was very sympathetic, taking my arm as we walked.

We ambled around the grounds completely on our own – no-one else was about. We even went up to the walls of the house and looked in the windows at the gloomy gilt interiors (very rude I know, but there was no-one about to see us). Immediately in front of the house the ground fell away in a ninety-degree sloping lawn, and then stopped abruptly at the cliff edge. To the side was a wide terrace that dropped down onto a formal rose garden and then led to broad herbaceous borders (more trees beyond and then again the cliff-edge – this was not somewhere I would like to wander around in the dark!).

On a nearby lawn was a big white marquee - the tea tent. It was a relief to go inside out of the sun and sit down and have some tea. All around us were standing groups of large well-upholstered ladies elegantly dressed in (mostly silk) floral print dresses (it was like being surrounded by a herd of well-bred heifers). On one table were a number of elderly men (obviously husbands) some of them wearing white panama hats. Sitting on his own was an old man in a flat cap and shabby clothes ("Tenant farmer?" I suggested to Helen. "Probably a peer of the realm" she said, "in these sort of gatherings the scruffiest person always turns out to be the most important"). We listened to the conversation of some of the large ladies near us - they complained about the heat, complained about Tony Blair, surreptitiously (sotto voce) complained that the tea was weak.

As we left the tea tent we passed two very good-looking young women, obviously daughters of the house, selling plants to elderly ladies from a make-shift stall set up on a table. One of the young women broke off her conversation to say, in a bored aristocratic drawl, that someone had left the side doors open and the dogs had got out.