On the way, though, I can’t help loving how the land looks greener and plumper than ever. Catkins are jiggling on the branches, and in the mysterious, bushy cleeves, clenched buds are stickily unfurling. The sky is blue with high white cottonwool puffs of cloud, the blossom lies heavy on the bough, and the lambs frisking in the fields are unaware that after a few short but blissful months of hopping and butting and nibbling, they will appear on Sunday-lunch tables throughout the county, slathered with mint sauce and redcurrant jelly. Honeyborne has truly excelled itself, to the extent that even the combined efforts of Hollywood image-makers and Richard Curtis could not have presented a West Country village and its inhabitants in a peachier light.

Spring came late this year – I thought it would never come – but is now in full fig.

The mellow-toned church bells are pealing, rocking out the nuptials all over the valley. And now, as I sit gratefully in the polished pews of the small seventeenth-century church of St Mary of All Angels, I can almost hear the tear-stained troths between bachelor and spinster of the parish being pledged up and down the land.

The six ringleted bridesmaids, scudding about in puff-sleeved taffeta empire-line gowns the rich thick colour of Cornish clotted cream, trimmed with dark-green velvet ribbons and bows and furbelows, were being marshalled into position as we drew near, to totter solemnly into the church in adorably matching pairs behind the ivory-sheathed loveliness of the bride. In the lanes, black vintage Bentleys lay like sharks basking in the shallows.

So here we are, tucked in our ringside seats in a tight row to see Granville give away Serena at this traditional English country wedding. Outside, the scent of wild garlic and honeysuckle is heavy on the air but, inside, the ancient nave and rafters are festooned with lavish swags of blooms arranged by Cath.

A different sort of rich wife, in a different climate, might have had the floral arrangements taken care of by a celebrity Knightsbridge florist and a plant doctor. But not Cath. She wanted her daughter’s wedding to reflect not just her own taste and personality, but also her concerns. So Cath has done all the flowers herself, with her own hands, out of love and pride. ‘True simplicity is the greatest luxury of all,’ as she says, as if no one but a brute could ever think, for one second, that money – and not love or family or community – was the sixth sense that makes the other five come most fully alive.

It is time. Cath Cobb slips into her first-row pew, and is sitting as erect and slim as a birch tree.