Welcome to Reggie Darling

This is my first official posting as Reggie Darling and my inaugural foray into the world of blogging.  I hope that you will find my efforts at times interesting, amusing, thought provoking, educational, and maybe even sometimes controversial.  My goal is to engage you.

This is a life-style blog.  If you are looking for a discussion of issues of world peace, famine, and the injustices of our legal system, this is not for you.  There are plenty of other blogs out there focused on such subjects and you should go there.  Now.  This blog is going to focus on the diversions that I enjoy when I’m not pursuing my professional obligations.  It will also share with you stories of my family and my upbringing, which will help put my other topics in context, I believe.  I plan on writing about entertaining, collecting and decorating, cocktails, music, dressing well, books, antiques, cooking . . . along with the myriad other flotsam and jetsam that give me pleasure, and that I believe will give many of my readers pleasure, too.  Because the purpose of this blog is to provide you, gentle reader, with a diversion from your daily cares.

I have learned a lot about these and other random subjects during my life so far, and I am looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned with you.

I welcome discussion, so I encourage you to comment here at Reggie Darling, whether you agree with me or take exception to what I have to say.  I will be moderating comments, though, so for the “Anonymous” commenters out there – you are forewarned that gratuitously snarky attacks will never see the light of day on this blog.  On the other hand, I welcome and encourage healthy disagreement and will post such comments when delivered with civility.  For this is a civilized blog, and civilized people have good manners and respect others.  I do.

So here’s my curriculum vitae:

My name is Reginald Ambrose Darling, and I’m known as “Reggie” by my friends and intimates.  I know that the name “Reggie Darling” sounds a bit of a joke, and believe me, I am no stranger to reactions of amusement when introducing myself to someone for the first time.  But that’s my name and I’ve come ‘round to rather liking it over time.

I’m a WASP sometime-observant Episcopalian who grew up on the East Coast of America in comfortable circumstances in a family that valued education, accomplishment, and service to our Nation.  My ethnic roots are largely concentrated in the British Isles and many of my ancestors arrived in America before the Revolution.  I attended one of the Saint Grottlesex boarding schools and also an English public school, and graduated from one of the Holy Trinity of the Ivy League.  The men in my family have traditionally pursued careers in the law, the military, medicine, and the Church; captains of industry are noticeably absent.  I am employed by one of the large, global investment banks where I work in the debt capital markets, and have spent the better part of my career in finance.  I am married to Boy Fenwick, an interior decorator with clients in the Park Avenue/Greenwich axis.  That’s right, I’m married to a man which is probably the only thing about my life that would surprise my forbears should they know me today.  Boy and I divide our time between an apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and Darlington House, a jewel of a Federal-era house several hours north of the city that we are endlessly and ruinously restoring and furnishing.  You will get to know Darlington House well on this blog.  Boy and I have been together for twelve years and consider ourselves a family, since we also share our lives with a most-adored pug named Pompey.  You’ll come to know Pompey, here too.

This description is an expanded version of what already appears on my Blogger profile.  Some commenters in the past have irately accused me of being a snob and a braggart for providing this description of who I am.  Actually, it is simply a factual description of the particulars of my circumstances, with no sense of superiority, entitlement, or snobbishness on my part.  I am acutely aware that I am fortunate for the advantages I have had, and humble that it was sheer luck, and only luck, that provided me with such a privileged basis upon which to live my life.  I believe that no man, woman or child is responsible for where they came from, or for what hand fate has played them.  On the other hand, I most firmly believe that we are all directly responsible for (and accountable for) what we make of our lives in light of what it is that we have been given.

So, now that you know a bit about me, let’s get on with the fun!

Photos by Reggie Darling