As Ralph points out, ‘Mimi, darling, no man ever gives a moment’s thought to how many children a woman has. We can barely remember whether she’s married, her husband’s name and what either of them are FOR, let alone the number of babies they have somehow managed to produce, against what look like the heaviest of genetic odds. I just can’t think why it matters so much to you women.’

But Cath doesn’t ram the four-children thing down one’s throat at all. No, what she does is even worse. She does everything effortlessly and really seems to enjoy running a business, her four children, umpteen homes and A-list social life. When I first went round, I sneakily checked out the Court Place visitor’s book – talk about livre d’or: David Cameron and Samantha, Otis and Bryan, Charles and Camilla – all within about two pages!

I know it’s uncool to be impressed, but I was.

Anyway, when we betas (three children, one house, no money) nudged the Subaru at the wrought-iron gates, they swung silently open, and we drove up in silence, drinking it all in: the finely graded, evenly distributed gravel, the beech trees that line the drive all lit up and, dotted around between the trees, a sort of sculpture garden, not just Brit Art and Damien Hirst ironic stuff with cows and naked women squatting to pee but wonderful old stuff too, like Frink and Hepworth and Moore, that must be worth millions…

We worry – or rather, I worry – about leaving the Subaru in front of the honey-stoned, colonnaded façade because it really lowers the tone, and wonder whether more frequent, i.e. richer and smarter guests, know to park round the back, at the stables, but then the butler, Maddocks, shimmies out to greet us.

‘What ho,’ says Ralph, predictably, when this man in a dark suit and tie who isn’t Granville and who is all too obviously a butler opens the door.

I try to execute a finishing-school exit from the Subaru, a manoeuvre made more complicated by the fact that I am carrying a bag and my precautionary pashmina, which remains acceptable –just – at evening events, especially ones held in the open air in April.

I am also grasping a precious and pretentiously expensive bottle of Peace Oil to my bosom, produced by Palestinian, Israeli and Druze farmers working in peace together, and soon to be gifted to Cath (though I’m wondering whether to leave it in the car as it’s coals to Newcastle taking a smart present to the rich, who all benefit from the to-those-that-have-shall-even-more-be-given rule, which is all wrong, as is the practice of taking humble scrap-like offerings to one’s poorest friends).

As soon as we arrive, Ralph’s clearly ready to give the house the once-over, to check out proportions, cornices, pictures and antiques, and especially the Flemish tapestries and modern art, but we are shooed through an enfilade of rooms into this double-length drawing room, which is heated, and when I say ‘heated’… it’s hammam temperature.