I hosted my first wealth-peering group, at home. You gather together like-minded friends and it works a bit like a book club. Except we don’t talk about fiction, we discuss our investments, swap stock tips and debate how best to spend our money. My American friend Evelyne told me about it. She said that nobody in Manhattan has pointless coffee mornings any more. It’s all about wealth-peering and which group you belong to (she peers with Ivanka Trump).

For my inaugural session, I invited Natalia, Fizzy, Olympia, Jasmina, Marina, Serena and Allegra. Caroline Stanbury cancelled at the last minute, claiming she was snowed under with pre-Christmas orders from her new specialist gift site, gift-library.com. Who would have known there’d be such demand for mouth-blown glass match strikers, diamanté pens and framed vintage Playboy covers, which, curiously, are sold in the “art” section?

Will from Absolute Flowers created a wonderful display for my drawing room, using empty bottles of Cristal and Chanel No 5, each filled with a single fresh garden rose in cerise or blood red. It looked impossibly chic and really set the tone for our discussion, which I kicked off with the big question: what is money for?

“Well, I couldn’t live a normal life without it,” announced Natalia. “Can you imagine not being able to travel with your help?” Everyone agreed that it would be a terrible inconvenience. “Or worse, imagine not having any help at all. I can’t remember how to wash my own hair, let alone dry it,” fessed up Fizzy, who’d had too many of the dirty cash cocktails I’d laid on for the event. “One needs at least three homes — city, country and vacation — to live anything like a civilised life,” sniffed Marina. “And they must be decorated appropriately,” chimed in Jasmina, who’s recently had David Collins redo her gazebo. “You couldn’t be ‘Us’ without money. You’d have to be ‘Them’,” concluded Serena. And we all shuddered at the thought.

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