Admittedly, there are several acres of wrinkled flesh, but this is enlivened by the frequent glimpse of pert taut skin, glossy tumbling hair, and peachy buttocks… and that’s just the waiting staff! I’ve invited friends of the children, like Spike, as well as various fitties, like Colin Watts plus fiancée Serena Cobb, and Jesse Marlon, and as for Virginie Lacoste… as even Ralph admits, she is a sight for sore eyes. I feel awfully grateful to her for being so pretty and well dressed. As anyone knows, but few are prepared to acknowledge, there’s nothing like prolonged exposure to countryfolk to make one feel the first guilty twinge of gerontophobia.

After the antipasti and then the risotto, and even all the olives and focaccia have been devoured and plates cleared, I leave the table to supervise in the kitchen, where the final touches are being put to the pudding. I hover anxiously as the ridiculous rococo tiered birthday cake piled with bouncy early English strawberries and curlicues of whipped cream (the work of the pastry chef at Court Place) is borne to the table by a trio of waiters dressed as gondoliers. On the very top a putto reclines pudgily, with a harp.

The sponge is that deep yellow that suggests to drooling observers that the legendary eggs of the legendary Court Place farm hens have been richly incorporated into the confection. The cake has drawn an admiring crowd of children and teenagers, including Posy, Cas, Ned ’n’ Fred Bryanston, and Mirabel, who is guarding it with Cerberus-like ferocity.

Waiters rush around with bottles, filling glasses, and the roar in the tent reaches a crescendo, as everyone is now either very drunk or getting on famously and the ice has been decisively broken.

I gaze around.

Serena Cobb, on my table, is sitting on Colin Watts’ lap, and he is whispering in her ear something about going ‘up the paddocks’ – I think Dorset code for a quick shag – and Serena is shaking her head.

Virginie (channelling Tadzio in Death in Venice in tailored city shorts and a Celine sailor suit with an organza collar, designed to appeal to admirers of both sexes) and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (whom she calls ‘Eugh’) are getting on like a house on fire, while Rose, I notice, is looking grumpy and is ignoring Pierre, as she has done for many years.

Mathieu Lacoste is failing to talk to Suki, the pregnant and glowing heiress married to the Tory lawyer, and watching his wife waltz through the tables and exit the marquee, in what could be hot pursuit of a celebrity chef.

Ralph rises like a flick-knife to his feet. He tings his spoon on a bottle. ‘Can you all pipe down,’ he says. ‘You’re making an awful racket.’