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Many of you will know that the other Dr A is a doctor. Many of you will know that he is my other half, distinguished from me only by the fact that he likes his eggs poached rather than scrambled, and a predisposition to strenuous activity that I lack. He is also (or was, I never quite know where we are on this journey) a soldier in a regiment of which Camilla is colonel-in-chief (or was, I am not sure if her promotion means she still has time for such things) which means we occasionally get an invite in the post to Highgrove.

 We’ve never been lucky enough to go and do one of the mingles, where Camilla and Charles press the flesh, and I hadn’t had any real desire to until I heard a story about the last one. Camilla was commiserating with a soldier’s wife about how hard it must be to have the away so much and for so long. The wife responded to the Queen Consort with tales of how such a separation did wonders for the sex life. Apparently, Camilla was as gracious as you would expect her to be in the circs, but everyone else was entirely incapable of any royal chit chat after that. But yes, Highgrove. My reward for all those long and frequent separations before my husband was claimed by the NHS.

 Firstly, I so wish this was a garden tour. I took my phone and two cameras to Gloucestershire and managed a single selfie. The King is famously reluctant to share too much of Highgrove. It is, unlike the most opulent buildings associated with his role as monarch such as Windsor castle and Buckingham Palace, his family home. 

As we gathered in the orchard room, we were warned about photography and also about stepping off the well-trodden tour path. The promise that a police person would immediately appear and accost anyone that tried it, gave it that sense of temptation. Like a button with a sign that says do not push. 

I didn't, obviously. I did notice some incredibly discreet cameras. And the garden guide was wearing an incredibly elegant waterproof coat, and I wondered if she was armed. 

However, god bless the ubiquity of film-making, I highly recommend this wonderful gallery of images and films here.

But enough of the context, what about the garden? Overall it is lovely. Two bits of it are incredibly, jaw-droppingly, life-changing lovely (it probably would be three if I'd ever seen the meadow in flower). 

But there are some bits of the garden I just don't get. The southern hemisphere garden, renamed the Winterbourne Garden when the hard frosts of 2010 killed off many of the tree ferns, felt a bit flat and oppressive, although the whole atmosphere was lightened by a huge topiary snail. The stumpery, a famous area of Highgrove, is best described as damp. We passed through it, a jungle of ferns and hostas, whilst the sun was still out and the umbrellas were furled, and even then, it felt dank. Maybe I am more sensitive than I would be in other years because of the impact of slugs on my life, but all I could think was that it felt like a haven for molluscs. 

The Stumpery also contains one of the many features of Highgrove that made me stop in my tracks and think, however much I admire the King as a plantsman, you could not pay me enough money  to put this thing in my garden. The Temple of Worthies, with a picture of the Queen Mother on it. I stood and gaped, and not in a good way.

Now, this does bring me to the closest of my degrees of separation from Charles; the Temple of Worthies was designed by the Bannermans (Isabel and Julian) whose kitchen was designed and built by the same person who designed and built mine at Malus Farm. I did also go to school with one of the lesser-known Spencers (of the Diana variety, but if you go back far enough, also the sweet peas). Those are all the royal connections I have.

We passed through quite quickly, keen to get back into the sunshine, but we all stopped to admire 'Holly-rood House', the thatched treehouse built for William and Harry and one hopes, a scene of some childhood happiness for them. The holly tree in which it was originally built is long gone but it is now on stilts and wreathed in wisteria. Apparently, George now makes good use of it, although he has also been gifted a beautiful shepherd's hut which, despite my very best efforts, I didn't see. 

We meandered on, listening to thunder on the horizon. There was a devastatingly crushing moment where we were told that the Kitchen Garden was out of bounds. This had been, by some distance, my favourite part last time and I stood with my nose through the palings of the gate, refusing to move, like Morag setting at a pheasant. I spied another tour group at the far end, and pointed out that what was good for them, was good for us. After some furtive consultation, the calamine lotion pink door was opened (the Queen Mother’s favourite colour apparently, another idea I won’t be borrowing) and I dashed into the magical apple espalier arch, like Mary Lennox bursting into The Secret Garden.

Winning first place in the bits of Highgrove I would want to take home, the walled kitchen garden is breathtakingly fabulous. Proper walls. Trained fruits. Box everywhere. Big enough to lose yourself in. Small enough to feel enclosed.

As I wasn’t allowed to get my phone out, I scribbled notes on the back of my hand about which squash varieties the King grows. Tosca. Atena. Black Beauty. Confusingly, none of these seem to be available as organic seeds, but as King Charles was one of the first to embrace organic growing in 1980, I cannot quite square this circle. Not that I am going to be reporting him to the Soil Association, I’m just… curious. He did have whole patches covered in green manure so maybe it all evens out.

I took some getting out of the kitchen garden. I examined every path and every corner, including the one with the hedgehog house, complete with water bowl. As we had already been warned that we risked being sent to the Tower of London if we left a gate open and let the rabbits in, I wondered how the hedgehog had made its way in there. I suppose if you are the king and you ask for a hedgehog, you get one.

I was dragged out of the lettuce beds, protesting that I hadn’t spent enough time examining the Golden Hornet goblet trained crab apples, as the rest of the tour group eyed the ominous skies.

We got as far as the most glorious of cornus trees in the arboretum. We stopped to peer at the King’s sanctuary, a miniature chapel, in the Arts and Crafts style, built entirely out of cob and lime, with the spiked roof so characteristic of the best Cotswold villages. We weren’t allowed to get close to it; it is considered the King’s hideaway, and only the select few get a key. I would have hung around, what with being an aficionado of lime, but at this point, the heavens absolutely opened.

I had brought a very large umbrella, mostly out of superstition, and so I refused to be rushed past the Thyme Walk, notoriously short of thyme because it is relentlessly nibbled by the Gloucestershire rabbits. But I wasn’t looking at the thyme, I was absolutely riveted by the topiary. I mean, there’s topiary absolutely everywhere, it’s that sort of garden, but there are some pieces that are just wonderful. Wonderful and hilarious, and funny and touching, and impressive. The first one as you look up the walk is, wait for it, a Christmas pudding. There are about twenty huge balls and shapes, all very Alice in Wonderland. Swirls and cushions. I didn’t get close enough to see whether they were yew or box, but if they are box and they were mine, I wouldn’t sleep at night. I wish they were mine though, and I have been researching yew shapes every since.

I wanted to touch them but at that point, the group picked up speed, and we rushed towards the tea room. We passed two gardeners who had been cutting the pleached hornbeams sheltering under a huge sweeping oak tree. At least, they were dressed as gardeners but I wondered if they were secret policemen, for they had left their petrol hedgetrimmers and helmets out in the hammering rain, and not brought them under the tree with them. Would a real gardener ever do that? Would a hedgetrimmer ever start again? They are such temperamental things.

We didn’t hang around. We fled from the absolutely torrential rain into the Orchard rooms, shaking coats and boots and umbrellas. I sipped alternately from a celebratory glass of champagne and a warming cup of tea and caught up with old friends.