The second cottage in David's garden series depicts a stately house of considerable grandure, the home undoubtedly of a noble man who has prospered and achieved wealth and status. The fouder of this family's good fortune might perhaps have rendered his monarch, Henry VIII for instance, loyal service and been handsomely rewarded by a King known for his lavish generosity to those who unhesitatingly obeyed him.
   The official at court who managed the buying of provisions, the kitchens, and household staff, was know as the 'spencer' from which the word dispencer has evolved; he would have been well placed to curry favour with Henry VIII who was as dedicated to eating as much as to hunting. Nothing brought a more genial smile of complete contentment to this plump monarch's face than an ordinary meal which might consist of:
   First reserve: Barley broth or turtle soup.
   Second reserve: Boiled fishes -- eel, roach, gudgeon and dorie.
   Third reserve: Roasted fowls, hen, goose, peacock and swan.
   Fourth Reserve: Baked meats -- haunch of venison, loin of beef, chine of mutton and pinbone steak of pork.
   Fifth reserve: Custards, coucets, sallets, fricassees, fools and flummeries, quelquechoses and pastes.
   This would be accompanied by spiced and sweetened wines mixed with fresh cows milk.
   All these calorific dishes were bount to put a smile on his majesties corpulent face and inevitable put the spencer who had organized it all into the the royal good books. There is no knowing how far a shrewd spencer might go, in fact a couple went very far; firstly the Spencer-Churchill family who are Dukes of Marborough, the forbears of Winston Churchill, and secondly the Spencers of Althorp in Horthamptonshire -- Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales was a member of this family. Her brother is the ninth Earl of Althorp. Another Spencer lady married George Washington's uncle, so Spencers are well represented across the water.
   And, by the most extraordinary coincidence, David Winter is related to yet another Spencer family, not of Dukes, Earls and Presidents, but a more humble branch from Warwickshire. David's full name is David Frederick Spencer Winter; the Frederick is after David's father who is universally known as Colonel Freddie and one day we will have to tell you about him.