Real life | 27 August 2015

On the basis that I might need a new boiler soon, I thought I had better sell the London flat and move to the Cotswolds.

Fine, so it wasn’t just the gurgling noise coming from the Potterton Performa. I had been pondering my place in the world, which is never a good thing for a person of my nervous disposition to do. The break-up with the builder boyfriend; the escalating cost of keeping three horses in Surrey; the liberal leftie south London neighbours regaling me every time I leave my house with the words ‘Isn’t Jeremy Corbyn wonderful?’ — it was all making me feel perfectly unstable, as if a big move was the only thing for it.

I can’t be doing with this madness, I thought. I need to sell up and go somewhere quieter, saner and less expensive. Somewhere I might be master of my destiny, with my horses on my own land and my nearest neighbours not spouting their devotion to a bearded Trot who wants to take Britain back to 1975.