The mountain spring that feeds our house froze during the first ground frost, and we had no water. The builder boyfriend filled a bucket from the fountain in the garden so we could flush the loo. This really is living in faded grandeur. I spent the evening worrying about how we had cursed ourselves by
We were riding the two cobs down the lane when I heard the car roaring its engine behind us. I had seen it pull out of a long, winding driveway coming from a house perched on top of the highest point of the hillside, a few hundred yards along from our place. It went the
The funeral drinks at McCarthy’s bar was splendid, and towards the end we got invited to another one. I was sitting at the bar with a bowl of soup and a plate of neatly cut cheesy sandwiches, while the builder boyfriend drank a pint of Murphy’s, when the bar owner leaned over and told us
‘The vet’s here and he’s 12,’ I called over the farmyard gate where the builder boyfriend was waiting with the injured cob. I don’t think the lad heard me as he got out of his car. I hope the Irish ones don’t faint, I thought, because we had a nice gory cut for him. The
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
‘Let’s get out of here,’ I whispered, almost in tears, as the priest finished his horrible homily. Standing at the altar in front of a stained-glass window showing Jesus with his arms outstretched, this priest was telling us all off for what had happened in Dublin, three hours’ drive away. I suppose we expected a
‘Have you ever eaten breakfast at the Hilton before?’ shouted the woman on the door of the restaurant, as a guest attempted to gain entry. She told me I could help myself to coffee and I said I would, because I had As he mumbled something, she shouted: ‘And how are you this morning?’ He
The light does such magical things on this hillside that, as I walk the steep narrow lanes between fields, I can’t take my eyes off a distant, golden-topped mountain range. At night the sky is so clear I wander into the garden and stare at the northern star, bright and low. I saw in the
In the pitch dark, we stormed from the house to the pick-up truck and screeched out of our farmyard with me shouting: ‘Come on! This is our only chance! If we don’t get there now we’re done for!’ ‘They won’t sell to us because we’re English. It’s like those stories you hear about idiots who
‘We’re waiting for the llamas to turn up,’ said the lady selling lottery tickets from her car in the supermarket car park. She had accosted the builder boyfriend as he walked by, shouting: ‘I want a word with you! We’re all very worried about what you’re going to be doing to that old house up
With families chatting in the seats around me, a young girl knitting across the aisle, I gripped the arm rests. I’m not a good sailor, so as I stared out at a flat calm sea, I went through a version of the same ritual I do when I’m on a plane: I figured that if
‘We’re in the living room with a roaring fire, there’s not a sound for miles, it’s wonderful,’ said the builder boyfriend, phoning from Ireland. I was lying on the bed of a budget hotel room in Surrey, watching TV and eating a packet of crisps. I leapt up. ‘Are the dogs OK?’ I asked, thrilled
The hatchet-faced woman who shouted at me pulled out her lipstick and sat reapplying it during the meeting. The pretty young girl next to her took out a nail file and sat filing her nails, as people shared. She was wearing see-through, skin-tight, skin-coloured leggings and a pair of six-inch wedged boots. I sat opposite
For a few blissful days I became ensconced in a room at the Premier Inn, with no fixed abode. I was not a property owner. I had no responsibilities. I was free. This wondrous state of near-vagrancy was only until the purchase of my house in Ireland went through, but I enjoyed it all the
‘You’re only allowed one roll of packing tape per customer,’ said the lady in the local hardware store. The builder boyfriend was holding five rolls, at £2 each, thinking it was reasonable to buy a tenner’s worth, or even that she might be pleased, in line with the normal rules of commerce. But this lady
Queueing behind a young woman in the supermarket I became fascinated by the items she had placed on the conveyor belt. Several bottles of expensive booze had gone through first, followed by six tins of chickpeas, two bits of broccoli, then packet after packet of processed meat substitute products. Cheese-free cheese, ham-free ham, soy this
‘They’re going to have to stop cows,’ said my mother, looking doubtfully down at her plate as we tucked into a roast dinner. It was not like her to come over all veganistic, but she had been watching the BBC where she had got hold of the idea that cows might have to be banned
‘Ukraine Family – Welcome You,’ said the ungrammatical sign at the entrance to the car park of our favourite West Sussex beach. The rest of the beach was like a bomb had hit. Mounds of shingle had risen up like statues of mythical creatures We had arrived for a sentimental visit that might be our
‘We’re renegades now. We’re outlaws. Bandits.’ This was my assessment as the builder boyfriend pulled up outside the house in his old truck with a load of wood hanging off the back. White van man and dirty great pick-up truck man, in the case of the BB, have found a way around paying the Ulez.
‘I can’t go through this again!’ I groaned, as I lay in bed encased in icepacks, one on my eyes and the other round the back of my neck. Covid – which seems to be alive and kicking this summer despite being pronounced over by the World Health Organisation – always strikes at my nervous
