Such was the elegant and refined setting of Weston Park in Shropshire that one could safely say that politicians were drinking at the last chance salon last week. Certainly, that was the atmosphere that the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister tried to create.
P.G. Wodehouse modelled Blandings Castle, to where Bertie Wooster and his faithful man servant Jeeves occasionally motored for idle weekends, on Weston Park. Jeeves often extricated Bertie from difficult scrapes. A different Bertie and Mr Blair could have done with his company last week.
Mr Blair is leader of a still powerful nation and Mr Ahern has a Celtic Tiger to keep in shape, yet both leaders devoted a lot of their time and, perhaps, a little of their credibility, in the English countryside last week attempting to stabilise the Belfast Agreement.
We should know soon enough whether their "take-it-or-leave-it" plan would be worthy of a Jeeves stratagem. The two leaders, mostly in the company of Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists, talked themselves to exhaustion. From Friday they had the framework for a deal, but Sinn Fein said it was flawed in several respects, while the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists, from opposing perspectives, were unhappy with some of the police proposals.
What to do? Let's stop talking, decided Mr Ahern and Mr Blair, and put to the parties "as soon as possible" our best understanding of what everybody could tolerate. Risky politics, but Mr Ahern and Mr Blair felt there was no other option.
Reporters gathered outside Weston Park from Monday to Saturday - we weren't allowed beyond the perimeter gate - and were treated to scarcely changing soundbites from the politicians as they came and went. This is about one issue only, said Mr David Trimble, IRA arms.
This is about several issues such as policing, British army watchtowers in south Armagh, and safeguarding the institutions of the agreement, said Mr Gerry Adams. What it most assuredly is not about is IRA weapons, he added. But, despite the apparent disingenuousness from Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists, everyone knew last week was about devising a comprehensive framework to rescue the Good Friday accord.
British and Irish sources and Ulster Unionist and SDLP politicians were telling us all week that inch-by-inch progress was being made on three of the four main issues - policing, demilitarisation, and safeguarding the institutions - but there was no republican give on weapons.
They were all ganging up on Sinn Fein, but republicans thrive on such adversity. "We are not here to speak for the IRA," said Mr Adams, Mr Martin McGuinness and Mr Gerry Kelly. At the midnight press conferences Mr Seamus Mallon laid into Sinn Fein for refusing to address the weapons question. "Ah, don't be so grumpy," responded Mr Adams.
The Sinn Fein line was consistent. Effectively, it was: "If we get all we want then it will be for the IRA to decide what to do on arms. But in May last year it said in the proper context - shorthand for the full Patten, demilitarisation, criminal justice, etc - it would begin a process to verifiably put its weapons beyond use, so let's trust the IRA on its promises."
At the midnight and morning press conferences all last week Sinn Fein said the British government just wasn't delivering. Even on Saturday afternoon, health minister Ms Bairbre de Brun, who left the talks before they concluded, said the British government was failing to meet its obligations.
Mr Trimble, who also left the talks early on Saturday ("it wasn't a walkout," his spokespeople stressed) said he was not optimistic that the governments' gamble would succeed. But his tone was remarkably unruffled. He didn't convey the impression of a leader facing potential Armageddon.
When Mr Ahern and Mr Blair unveiled their strategy in a beautiful room surrounded by Van Dyck paintings on Saturday, everybody was surprisingly calm. Mr Adams had deviated slightly from the "not enough on the table" line to a more neutral, "Well, let's just wait and see the governments' package".
It was difficult to divine whether the overall mood was one of fatalism or restrained optimism. At least by that stage there was consensus that there was progress on three of the main issues. Nobody was predicting what the IRA might do on arms, but again Mr Adams was closeted in a room with Mr Blair and Mr Ahern for much of Friday and Saturday and the unanswered question was, did they concoct something together?
What seemed accepted by all sides was that how arms are dealt with will be for the IRA to decide, and for the decommissioning body to verify, and will not be on the basis of a unionist or any other precondition.
Mr Mallon, a betting man, wasn't calling it. "The odds are either 1/4 or 4/1," he said. The Alliance leader, Mr Sean Neeson, issued the dread word "clarification", warning that the politicians could drag out interminably the prospects of a deal by demanding further and further elucidation on points of detail.
However, August 12th, when Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon will be either re-elected as First and Deputy First Ministers or the British government will suspend the Assembly, possibly temporarily, or call fresh Assembly elections is acting as a deadline.
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair believe they can produce a package that will satisfy fierce conflicting interests. It's a tall order, but the politicians, after a long week, together at least realise that the alternative to doing business could be the gradual crumbling of the edifice of the agreement, and more violence on the streets.
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are trusting that the good sense of the politicians and the overall solidity of the structure of the agreement will pretty quickly free everyone from the logjam.