Rural life

During the course of last year, Alex Greaves and his wife Sarah seriously considered moving out of London. The couple, who live in Southfields in the south-west of the city with their sons aged two and five, were tempted the idea of a new life in the country – inspired largely by friends’ idyllic tales of moving to the sticks and into a home far grander than anything they could possibly afford in the capital. In the end, though, Alex and Sarah decided to stay put. And they are not alone. In the past year the number of Londoners leaving the city has dwindled dramatically. Research by estate agent Hamptons found that during 2024, Londoners purchased just 5.7 per cent of all homes sold beyond the city limits. This is a decade-long low, and down from a peak of 8.

My local gastropub, which is very popular, serves a hot, freshly made and runny-yolked scotch egg. It's billed as a ‘Cackleberry Farm Scotch Egg with Maldonado Salt’ because part of hospitality is marketing. If you just chalk up ‘scotch egg’ on a board, it doesn’t entice the appetite in quite the same way. But call it ‘œuf écossais enrobés de chair à saucisse’ and serve it on a cracked slate tile – you’ve got yourself a stampede. A couple who live in the village visited the pub and ordered two of them. Shortly after being served, the husband of the couple returned the plates to the bar and asked the staff to reheat their partially eaten scotch eggs. The landlord explained that he could not reheat them once they had been partially eaten.