Real life
I’ve seen the new face of veterinary medicine – and I don’t like it
After a week of cold hosing, I decided I would have to get the vet to the small swelling on…
Dr Google’s verdict? Anthrax poisoning
Six months into the renovations and I have so much dust in my lungs I have had to give Stefano…
Life is tough at the bottom of the equality heap
The incident I am about to recount I make no judgment about, other than that I believe it tells us…
Are my horses conspiring against me?
When it comes to horses, troubles come in multitudes. Multitudes of lame legs. Gracie, the hunter pony, kicked things off…
The poetry of kitchens
‘The colour of this kitchen is inspired by a blend of heather, bracken and the mountains of the Isle of…
Real life
The Albanian builders have started a turf war in my kitchen. The hostilities broke out suddenly. One minute the builders…
Real life
They are building the bonfire already. In the dip where winter flooding sometimes creates a small lake, the wood and…
Real life
How reassuringly like old times it is, going to a God-forsaken retail park with Stefano. We mooch about the DIY…
Real Life
Assuming someone had moved house before, and put a new boiler in their new house, while remaining a customer of…
Real life
BT have just put the phone down on me for asking them to stop sending me junk mail, which is…
Real life
Stefano and his boys got to work with gusto and within a few days the upstairs of my house started…
Real life
Stefano the Albanian turned up in a brand new Audi off-roader, cutting quite the dash. He looked older, with some…
Real life
My friendly neighbourhood Lib Dems have put some campaign literature through my door. In a covering note, they intimate that…
Real life
Darcy is high-maintenance, so I decided to leave her in the posh livery yard, with its luxuriant shavings beds and…
Real life
Easier by far to load up my horses and move them to the next village than try to fight the…
Real life
Like Steve McQueen gone slightly to seed, the builder boyfriend strode off into the sunset. Nothing becomes him so much…
Real life
‘This situation is Rorke’s Drift,’ said the builder boyfriend, after our proposed renovations were objected to at the parish council’s…
Real life
Quite stoically, I was mountaineering on my hands and knees over a sea of rubble to get to the temporary…
Real life
Two months after I cancelled Sky, a strange letter arrived in the post. ‘We are writing to you because we…
Real life
‘What do you think it means?’ I asked the builder boyfriend as we stood in front of the sign. A…
Real life
Last night, I had dinner at the M25 services. I don’t mean I stopped for a break mid-journey. I mean…
Real life
Since moving to my dream home in the country a month ago, I’ve only had to fight a parking dispute,…
Real life
All had gone suspiciously quiet down our little track on the village green, and we had begun to think we…
Real life
And so, as it must, the pilgrimage to find a local GP surgery begins. This is a great British tradition,…
Real life
‘I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake with my council tax,’ I said to the lady at Guildford Borough Council. ‘Right,’…
