EVERYTHING changes when you enter the Jillyverse. Everything is warmer somehow, jollier, lovelier, more heavenly. It begins the moment I step out of my taxi at the Chantry, Jilly Cooper’s home of 40 years in Bisley, Gloucestershire.
Jilly is there to greet me on the porch: knowing smile, dancing blue eyes, her distinctive white-blonde mane as fluffy as ever, wearing a thick woollen sweater with an embroidered greyhound motif. She’s 86 now and just a tad frail, but she’s still a masterful hostess, curious and lively.
It’s a warm afternoon but the fire in Jilly’s sitting room is roaring. There’s a glass of chilled champagne and some smoked salmon blinis waiting for me. And a barrage of compliments.
“You’ve got great eyebrows, they’re positively Byronic,” she tells me, somewhat generously.…
