Six months into the renovations and I have so much dust in my lungs I have had to give Stefano an ultimatum. ‘You’ve got to finish by Christmas,’ I told him when he arrived with his men the other morning, ‘or I am going to have to start spending the budget, such that it exists,
The incident I am about to recount I make no judgment about, other than that I believe it tells us where we are in the cycle of civilisation and that it is helping me orientate myself. A friend of mine was walking her dogs at the same beauty spot I walk my spaniels, when a
When it comes to horses, troubles come in multitudes. Multitudes of lame legs. Gracie, the hunter pony, kicked things off by deciding she didn’t want to be caught. A pony who is running at full pelt round a seven-acre field at the sight of you with a headcollar hidden in a feed bucket is a
‘The colour of this kitchen is inspired by a blend of heather, bracken and the mountains of the Isle of Skye,’ says the brochure. ‘Oh, sweet Lord,’ I think. ‘I just want a kitchen.’ Five months into the renovation and my fondest wish is simply for it all to be over before Christmas. But for
The Albanian builders have started a turf war in my kitchen. The hostilities broke out suddenly. One minute the builders were building and the plumber was plumbing and the next minute the builders were shouting at the plumber and the plumber was looking helplessly at me to intervene, only I couldn’t intervene because a) the
Although it seemed unlikely, I did not immediately dismiss the possibility of a hit and run skip lorry. The witness reports were clear: they came to empty my skip, couldn’t manage it, smashed the street to smithereens and drove off. I came home from town that evening, drove up the track in the dark and
They are building the bonfire already. In the dip where winter flooding sometimes creates a small lake, the wood and branches are being piled. A massive board has been nailed up announcing that ‘No More Material Is Required. By Order of The Bonfire Association.’ Therefore: ‘No Dumping.’ But someone has dared to disobey the order
How reassuringly like old times it is, going to a God-forsaken retail park with Stefano. We mooch about the DIY store together like an old couple, me with a face like thunder, he quietly pointing out boring things that we need like door handles, whispering the price, knowing exactly when I am liable to blow
Assuming someone had moved house before, and put a new boiler in their new house, while remaining a customer of British Gas, I set about doing that. It never occurred to me that I might be the first person on the planet to attempt such a thing. Not for a second did I imagine I
BT have just put the phone down on me for asking them to stop sending me junk mail, which is a bit much really. I rang the customer services number to ask if they would please unsubscribe me from all the emails they’ve been sending since I became a wifi customer of theirs. ‘You’re driving
Stefano and his boys got to work with gusto and within a few days the upstairs of my house started looking like the upstairs of a house. ‘I’ve got walls!’ I exclaimed, after one day. The next day: ‘I’ve got doors!’ The day after that I had a wardrobe. ‘Oh, you are wonderful!’ I told
Stefano the Albanian turned up in a brand new Audi off-roader, cutting quite the dash. He looked older, with some silver flecks in his black hair and beard that were rather distinguished. How to explain my predicament? It was tricky. I hadn’t been in touch since I’d asked him for a quote to renovate the
My friendly neighbourhood Lib Dems have put some campaign literature through my door. In a covering note, they intimate that they don’t understand why I can’t understand why everyone votes for them round here. The leaflet features a dozen pictures of our Lib Dem parish councillor doing good works in a variety of settings. Here,
Darcy is high-maintenance, so I decided to leave her in the posh livery yard, with its luxuriant shavings beds and 24-hour butler service. Being the great-granddaughter of Nijinsky, she expects to be accommodated in style and is apt to become disconsolate if left in a field for longer than a few hours. However Gracie, the
Easier by far to load up my horses and move them to the next village than try to fight the No Horse Riding signs here, I decided. I had been sneaking Gracie out the side gate of the livery yard opposite where I live and along the high street to ride around the nearby woods.
Like Steve McQueen gone slightly to seed, the builder boyfriend strode off into the sunset. Nothing becomes him so much as the manner of his leaving. He does so every now and then, this time, perhaps for good. I can’t blame him. As he walked away, his blonde hair shining in the sun, it occurred
‘This situation is Rorke’s Drift,’ said the builder boyfriend, after our proposed renovations were objected to at the parish council’s notorious planning meeting. ‘When you’re faced with 4,000 warriors armed with spears you may as well go down fighting,’ he declared, as we sat in the cottage ruminating on the news from our architect, who
Quite stoically, I was mountaineering on my hands and knees over a sea of rubble to get to the temporary loo in the basement until I impaled my foot on a nail sticking out of a chunk of wood. It was partly my fault for wearing flip-flops, of course. But the builder boyfriend grudgingly agreed
Two months after I cancelled Sky, a strange letter arrived in the post. ‘We are writing to you because we haven’t heard anything from you since we previously wrote to you about your overdue account,’ it said. Of course, I realise that it is easier for a rich man to get himself prosecuted for attempting
‘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
