‘We thought the house would make the most fantastic centre for climate action,’ I heard myself telling the cat rescue lady as she let the two moggies out of their carriers into the living room.
I was trying to reassure the socially conscious liberal who had brought the two cats we were adopting that she was leaving them in what she would consider a good place.
I said: ‘We want it to be somewhere schoolchildren can come to learn about biodiversity…’ What was I on about?
Still, pretending I was turning my house into a climate crisis hub was a bit much.
I had just come back from the bank where they had on their wall a poster for a nearby country house where the owners had done exactly that – to get the EU grants, according to the girl behind the counter when I asked her about it. And why not? We might have to go down that route if the plumbing gets much more expensive.
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