Diary – 19 January 2008

In the month of back to basics, I no longer hanker for parties or cut-price cashmere, just the long, deep bath of my dreams. We spent New Year with friends in Cameron country: lovely Oxfordshire farmhouses, big fires and buttock-honing walks. My husband emerged glowing from his bath and said very sweetly that he would run me a fresh one. Nooooo! Any fule kno you never get more than one tankful at a time in a country house, however well appointed. But he is a city boy so I said, ‘Thank you, darling,’ raced for the plug and sat in the remaining five inches, covered in gooseflesh from the navel upwards. Now I leaf through boiler brochures in a manner which verges on the pornographic.

Back in London and bumping into an old neighbour who has moved to a grander place, I ask how it compares with her old house.