‘What do you think it means?’ I asked the builder boyfriend as we stood in front of the sign. A huge placard, it had been hammered into the ground by the village action group. ‘Keep Our Village in the Green Belt’ is the gist of what it says. But behind it is another sign, which
Last night, I had dinner at the M25 services. I don’t mean I stopped for a break mid-journey. I mean I purposefully got into my car and drove from my house to a service station on the M25 because it was the only place to eat. This is not quite what I envisaged when I
Since moving to my dream home in the country a month ago, I’ve only had to fight a parking dispute, a right of way dispute, a council tax dispute and a dispute over my neighbour’s loft room being several feet inside my house. ‘It’s going well, isn’t it?’ I said to the builder boyfriend, as
All had gone suspiciously quiet down our little track on the village green, and we had begun to think we were being accepted by the neighbours. We settled in. We continued to park our car in the public space outside our house, and after a week or so not too many people told us to
And so, as it must, the pilgrimage to find a local GP surgery begins. This is a great British tradition, and I have been honoured in my lifetime to have taken part in many and varied official registerings at different NHS surgeries. Having been ceremoniously relieved of my first GP in London, and invited to
‘I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake with my council tax,’ I said to the lady at Guildford Borough Council. ‘Right,’ she said, only just disguising a yawn and starting to tap away doing something else on her computer. I wasn’t surprised. I had just been through a series of recorded options that more than adequately
‘You’re probably excited about your new service and keen to start using it as soon as you can,’ said the email from BT, not quite taking the words out of my mouth. I’m sorry to be difficult, but I just want Wi-Fi. I don’t want to get excited. I’ve been excited numerous times over the
After spending the day unblocking the gutters and drains in the pouring rain, he wasn’t in the mood for a parking dispute. He rang me while I was at work to tell me he had been ‘firm but fair’ with the lady who told him to move my car from the space slightly to the
The builder boyfriend has dug himself a hole. I don’t mean he’s in trouble with me. I mean he has literally dug himself a hole, in our new backyard. Since we moved in he has been digging there, sinking deeper into the earth on the lower ground floor level until he has almost disappeared. At
Well, there were seven of us in this chain, so it was a bit crowded, to paraphrase a princess. We didn’t know there were seven. We thought there were five. Imagine my confusion, therefore, when my house sale and purchase didn’t go through day after day, despite all five lawyers being on the phone to
A gentleman on Twitter ‘writes’ to say I’m boring him with my house move. ‘Snooze-fest’, says this chap, and he posts a little yellow unhappy face or ‘emoticon’, which passes for articulate on Twitter. I’ve never heard of this fellow, although it is likely he is some kind of pundit with followers in the blogosphere
With so many last-straw moments to choose from in my house-moving experience, it is a close call to pick the very, very last. But I think the absolute last straw happened like this. I was sitting in my house surrounded by boxes, pretty much waiting for the removals lorry to turn up. With exchange only
Goodbye then, Bal-ham. You were my gateway to the south. I loved you for so many more reasons than that, but the fact that I could get away from you and go down the A3 to the verdant grasslands of Cob-ham was probably one of the biggest ones, if I’m honest, so by and large
Some people get into the choosing of tap fittings. I am not a person who gets into the choosing of tap fittings. After a day looking at tap fittings, I don’t so much feel like I’m choosing tap fittings as the tap fittings are choosing me. It is imperative I do this quickly. A short
‘Information,’ came the reply. ‘We want information.’ The voice echoed in my head. Oh no. Oh please God, no. A month after going under offer again the new buyer hasn’t even booked a survey. The emails from their lawyers come thick and fast demanding bits of paper. And just like the last time, I have
Of all the many indignities I have suffered at the hands of my iPhone, the humiliation that sickens me the most is that it has rendered me ungrammatical. This monstrous device. This vile, evil, vindictive, obstructive, disingenuous, fiendish machine. I hate it. I loathe it more than I had thought it possible to loathe an
‘Mesdames et messieurs, allow me to introduce you to your meals,’ said the waiter. Oh lordy, I thought. Here we go. We were in a country pub near my parents’ home that used to be a little local place where you could get a Sunday roast for reasonable money. But it has been taken over
Someone has given the builder boyfriend an iPhone and things will never be the same. Until now, he has always had a ‘rubbish’ phone and I have always been able to get hold of him. Even though I have a blasted iPhone myself, at least one of us used to have a communications device that
If it takes any longer to find a buyer for my London flat I am going to start coming to the conclusion that it is perfect for me in my old age. Forget moving to a cottage with a vertiginous staircase in the inhospitable countryside, this two-bedroom apartment minutes from the hustle and bustle is
Shoot me if I ever let slip I’ve been mucking out with rubber gloves and a dustpan and brush. As God is my witness, I have just left a stable yard where the clientele were all ‘non-riders’ — women whose only joy in horse-owning was to make the mucking out last as long as possible.
