HOW I ACQUIRED THE STATUS OF BLENKINTHROPE'S AUNT

Some of the hardier souls among us are beavering away over their keyboards, even as we speak, trying to write a novel in 50,000 words and within the confined space of the month of November - an impossible task, I would have thought, unless you are Georges Simenon, who used to write a novel in three weeks most months of the year. But then he was Belgian and for that nation, excellence seems to be distributed like lumpy custard. Very few have it but those that do have a surfeit.

Yet even the great Simenon might have found the task impossible had he also been faced with the daily round of autumnal tasks: stewing the last of the windfalls, raking the leaves from the lawn and securing the hollyhocks against the sou'westers now sweeping up the Channel.
Personally, I find it hard to write fiction at all, regardless of the season. I have no difficulty in inventing characters - it's just that my characters never seem to do anything much when they are invented. They don't go around murdering each other, or seeing visions, or even having salacious and torrid affairs with other characters no better than they ought to be.

So I can empathise with Blenkinthrope - a poor commuter of a character - who appears in 'The Seventh Pullet' - one of Saki's inimitable Edwardian stories. Blenkinthrope complains of lack of respect from his fellow commuters on the morning Waterloo-bound express. They are in the habit of recounting anecdotes, but little in Blenkinthrope's grey and dismal life comes anywhere near making story fodder. "Nothing of a remarkable nature ever happens to me," he wails.

"Invent something," says his friend Goworth, who, having won a prize for Scriptural knowledge, says Saki, is now licensed to be unscrupulous. Thus does Blenkinthrope begin his journey into the land of make-believe.

After a few tales in which he teases his companions' interest with stories of pullets mesmerised by snakes that have invaded the poultry run, he feels he has to up the ante. His next anecdote begins nonchalantly…….

"Curious thing happened to my aunt, the one who lives in Paris. She was sitting on a seat in the Bois, after lunching at the Romanian legation……….."

Of course, Saki comments, "whatever the story gained in picturesqueness from the dragging in of diplomatic 'atmosphere,' it ceased from that moment to command any acceptance as a record of current events." Romanian legations are the trade-mark of fictions and alas Blenkinthrope is relegated immediately to the status of a Munchausen - destined never to be believed again.

Ever since reading that tale I have longed to be able to retail a true story about how I lunched at the Romanian legation, even if I didn't afterwards sit digesting my fodder in the Bois de Boulogne. Well, this week I achieved my goal - or came as close to it as I expect I ever shall. You will forgive me if I mention no names. Internet spiders these days crawl over everything and I have no desire to embarrass my hostess.

Let us just say therefore that last night I dined at the legation of one of the newer arrivals to the European Union having been invited there by that country's acting Ambassador. Actually, that isn't quite true, for the event took place in Cardiff in a setting that couldn't exactly be called a legation. Neither did I exactly dine, for reasons that will become apparent in a moment. Even so, I feel that I have now acquired the proper status of a Blenkinthrope aunt.

The diplomatic event marked the induction of the country's honorary consul in Wales. Quite why so many people - there must have been 150 - had been invited I do not know. My own invitation came, I suppose, because I am known to do 'European' things and also perhaps because I have possibly the unique distinction of having taught the Ambassador Welsh.

I had met her last Christmas, again at a reception in Cardiff, to mark her country's accession to the European Union. She was a little nervous about having to make a speech, not quite sure of the protocols of Wales, and wondering how to be welcoming without being stuffy. Say something in Welsh, I said, much in the manner of Blenkinthrope's chum. "So, teach me!" she gamely replied.

I have to confess to a certain effrontery here. My knowledge of Welsh is sadly deficient. Though perhaps deficiency is an advantage when it comes to imparting a couple of useful phrases while holding a glass of wine in one hand, a plate in the other and trying to spell 'croeso' on a paper napkin at the same time. Whether your origins lie in Western Europe or in the east, it is impossible to do this without giggling.

Indeed so much did we giggle that I wondered afterwards whether I might have been guilty of the sin of lèse-majesté if not towards the Ambassador then certainly towards the Welsh language, which, of course is taken most seriously in these parts. But her speech was excellent and my Welsh phrases drew gasps of admiration from the guests. So when I arrived at the present reception, I was greeted like a long lost friend.

I suspect we would again have retreated into a corner to enjoy some of the Romanian wine while discussing autumnal fruit preservation and the leaf fall in Transylvania had her more formal diplomatic duties not intervened. For despite the wine the throng of guests was becoming impatient. Stretching out on long loaded tables, but taped off just in case, was a finger buffet that beckoned appetisingly to rumbling stomachs.

Unfortunately, as in most of these cases there can be no supper without the singing, or rather speeches, and where was the Minister who would open the proceedings? The Ambassador looked anxiously at the clock.

I had other duties in the shape of a dress rehearsal later that evening and so sadly had to cut rapidly away before the speeches finished. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see that my hostess' appetite for the Welsh language had not abated. I thus never got to 'dine' exactly at the legation, or even to offer my formal thanks, but I came as close as gazing on the food. And I think that counts. Don't you?