As the Princess now sails up, a galleon in full sail, Granville makes a bow, from the waist. As he straightens, his face is pink with exertion and pleasure. Ralph and I move away discreetly, lest our presence distracts in any way from their relish of their social interaction with the crowned heads of Europe.

The Cobbs look incandescently pleased, and it is hard not to imagine that their delight is not merely because their first-born daughter Serena has just got married but because three ranking members of the Royal Family have come to her wedding.

And then, just as things could hardly get any more regal, or exciting, or thoroughly marvellous, we all simultaneously hear the distant chugga-chugga in the skies that portends the arrival of a helicopter. ‘Exactly on time,’ says Granville smoothly. ‘That should be Prince Harry, putting down on the helipad by the tithe barn.’

‘Prince Harry!’ shriek Mirabel, Posy and I in unison. Mirabel thrusts Serena’s bouquet into Posy’s arms, but I take it to dunk in a vase back at Home Farm later, when our feet are back on solid ground again.

Ralph and I grab flutes of Californian bubbly, and duck away, without having to gush sincerely to the Cobbs about how happy we are for them, how perfect the service was, how imaginative the marquee is, how pretty the orchard looks, with little round picnic tables encircling quince trees and decked with flowers, for the lunch.

All our words would be redundant, because the whole brilliantly and poetically staged event speaks for itself.

∗

‘Fancy old Princess Pushy coming,’ I say, impressed. ‘And Camilla. Blimey.’

I’m about to snaffle another glass from the tray of a passing waiter, realize I am still holding my first glass, so deposit my empty, and hesitate between a ginger and lime zinger and a glass of freshly squeezed mandarin juice, and sip the latter virtuously.

‘Mimi, darling, you are so easily impressed,’ says Ralph. ‘Helipads are like swimming pools, gyms and burglar alarms. Only for noovs. I thought even you knew that.’

I look around for canapés, and see a waiter within reaching distance and beckon him over. I stand in the path of a rather delicious-looking waiter with unruly black curls and something wanton about the mouth and take two roundels of crispy polenta topped with baby mozzarella and pesto, and eat them quickly, one after the other. ‘I bet they drove all the way from Kensington Palace, too,’ I say out loud. ‘It’s not as if it’s round the corner. That’s a bit of a coup for the Cobbs.’ I tell the waiter to hold on, and reach for a couple more. They are meltingly crisp and hot and cheesy. ‘Like all members of the Royal Family, and anyone who has to exist on inherited wealth, rather than millions a year of earned income, the Michaels must be always looking at new ways to save money,’ I muse.