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
We were about to exchange contracts when I got a call from the estate agent to tell me that another list of queries had come in. I took one look at it and decided I had better not read it properly, because I saw the words ‘wind turbines’. In a few decades no conveyancing will
‘What a worry the Ulez must be for you both,’ said a friend with a nod to the pick-up truck parked outside our house. It was kind of him to wonder. The builder boyfriend drives an old Mitsubishi L200 to work in London every day and like almost every other working man he cannot afford
‘Come on, let’s get a move on with filling in all the forms and we could have this done and dusted in three weeks!’ the estate agent bellowed at me down the phone. ‘Are you perhaps confusing the sale of my house with your Tesco delivery?’ I said. But in spite of myself, I took
As I slapped a rude note on a car parked outside my house, I realised that nature was taking its course. My transformation into a Surreyite was in danger of becoming complete. ‘If you have enjoyed using this private access track, then perhaps you might consider making a donation for its maintenance,’ I had snidely
Having loaded the last sack of working dog food in Surrey into my car, I slammed the trolley back into the trolley park and shouted an expletive at no one in particular. ‘What have you done to your lovely country store?’ I thought about asking one of the sales assistants inside the newly revamped posh
As I sat down to dinner in a lovely old country pub my reservation was cancelled by my iPhone, which was having a tantrum. The owner of this restaurant was serving us with a smile, we had been shown to our table, drinks and menus had been brought. But the buzzing lump of metal in
‘You certainly gave us a run for our money,’ said the village elder, serving us with what appeared to be the official goodbye statement. I was sick of that old navy dressing gown myself. Shortly afterwards I got him a new one from Sainsbury’s The builder boyfriend was flabbergasted. He had been walking across the
When I received an email from the Co-op telling me they had made a mistake with my car insurance, and I was owed money, I should have been pleased. I was not pleased. I was terrified. The letter included a reissued no claims discount of nine years, instead of the no years they had reduced
‘Do you want me to put my dog on the lead?’ shouted the woman on her phone, as she came towards me on the woodland path, her huge hound bounding ahead. It was not a polite question. It should have had ‘or what?’ on the end of it. Dave leapt into action and grabbed the
The horse dentist put down his medieval-looking implements and pinned me to the spot with a look. ‘Those guys,’ he said, reaching into the yawning jaws of the builder boyfriend’s black and white cob to check the back teeth he had just filed, ‘load horses and take them from England to Ireland and from Ireland
‘Achoo!’ was the first thing the girl sitting next to me on the plane said as I took my seat beside her. She groaned and blew her nose, coughed, spluttered, and apologised. ‘It’s hay fever, honestly,’ she said. She was in the window seat, I was in the middle. The older lady beside me in
The mouse has been eating his way through the medicine cabinet to the extent that I am really quite frightened of confronting him. I opened the cupboard above the sink to find an entire blister pack of paracetamol, several sachets of Solpadeine and some 400mg ibuprofen nibbled away. Also scoffed were two packs of antihistamine,
‘Have you got your passport? Your phone? Your wallet?’ The builder boyfriend patted his pockets and told me not to worry as we drove through the Gatwick drop-off lane where they charge you £5 to open your car door for three seconds and push someone out. When I arrived back home, he texted: ‘I left
