I love a weekend in the country. Last Saturday was my friend Lady Penelope's 50th birthday and she celebrated with a huge party at their house in Shropshire. Ever since she married the Earl of Bradford and became Lady Penelope I've had visions of her actually becoming THE Lady Penelope. Her brother clearly had the same idea, and for her birthday he presented her with this fantastic picture of herself against their house with her faithful husband as Parker.
The Earl of Bradford had erected (not with his own hands I'm sure) a huge teepee on the property with fire pits, sofas and almost as many cocktail waitresses as guests. Crucially though it was Lady Penelope's daughter's 21st on the same night and she had her own teepee nearby. I wandered over to check out the competition and lo! There was a cocktail van and a photo booth! Killer combo. It was hard to abandon Hugh, the octogenarian over in the grown ups tent who had greeted me with the line "I'm the Grope King, I'm at my worst on vodka but haven't got past the champagne yet" but the kid's entertainment did it for me (and Lady Penelope too - in the purple dress!).
