It all makes me think that if Cordings or Holland & Holland made pants and bras of tweed, everyone would doubtless buy those too.

At least two guns are wearing the Bamford shooting jacket, with a checked and patched inner lining, and plenty of soft, buttery suede trimming. This is like wearing a great big fluorescent flashing sign on your back saying ‘New Money’. I’d thought about getting Ralph one for Christmas. Until I discovered it cost £1,495, that is, and that even if I’d bought it, he’d never have worn it. Ralph wouldn’t be seen dead in anything new, rather than handed down from father to son, and informed me that genuine nobs such as the Duke of Beaufort shoot in jeans and fleeces, partly in order to show those who turn up in the whole tweed kit and caboodle as noovs and try-hards.

But in the Court Place high-ceilinged kitchen, perfumed with frying bacon and Chanel No. 5, grinding coffee and mouldy Barbours, only the tiniest variations on the tweed theme – i.e. Serena’s Norfolk jacket, or Cath’s silk scarf knotted at the throat – seem to be allowed, as if everyone is secretly taking part in a sartorial Spot the Difference contest.

When I’d asked Cath what to wear, she’d said, ‘Oh, we’re very casual! Nothing fancy. You’re not shooting, are you? Just Ralph, isn’t it? Just make sure you’re well wrapped, because the first drive is always chilly, especially when there’s a wind up and the dew is still on the ground.’

So I am clad in a purple kagoule over a navy fleece, and have pulled some waterproof teal over-trousers over my jeans and some breathable hiking boots. It’s not an elegant outfit, and I can barely hear myself speak I rustle so much when I walk, which I have to do with legs far apart. I may win no prizes for style, but I can be sure of one thing.

At least I won’t be cold. I am so well wrapped that an elderly person would suffer a fit of packaging rage – and have to assail me with scissors, knives and false teeth – in order to penetrate my outergarments to the epidermis.

In the kitchen Ralph had given me a doubtful look as he oiled his gun – his grandfather’s, of course – with a rag. The kitchen filled with the smell of gun-oil, but I was not to be deterred. He is still being extra nice to me at the moment, of course, and treats me with all the respect and distance a disposal officer does an unexploded bomb.

‘There’s no such thing as bad weather,’ I had said, finding an old grey bobble hat of Casimir’s to complete my natty ensemble, ‘only bad clothes!’

As soon as I see Rose enter, though, I do feel I may have interpreted Cath’s words slightly less literally.