On Saturday Robert takes Bertie to Richmond Park; other suburbians in west London go to the supermarket, wash the car or simply have a cup of coffee and read the papers.
In the last century tube strikes were not infrequent. One morning in the 1980s a colleague was at the end of a long queue at a bus stop in north London. An expensive car pulled over and the driver offered her a lift if she was going to the City.
Like Bertie with a bone, I’m reluctant to leave Patrick O’Brian. His stepson is Count Nikolai Tolstoy and his eldest daughter is Countess Alexandra Tolstoy-Miloslavsky. May I digress?