It took moving to Ireland to escape from the EU’s rules

The skip man laughed as he took pity on me, the daft English blow-in who was taking the EU rules on rubbish disposal literally.

‘You put so much concrete in that skip that if I weighed it in properly it would cost you a thousand euros,’ he said.

I told him I really didn’t mind paying the going rate. He said he wouldn’t hear of it.

‘If you’ve got land you can always get rid of concrete blocks by filling holes with them,’ he said. ‘Don’t be putting concrete into skips.’

The builder boyfriend, hard at work clearing the farmyard and barns, was aghast as I trotted outside to tell him his rookie mistake. ‘I don’t want to fly-tip on my own land!’ he said, making a pile of old lino he had removed from a back room, before demanding I order another skip.