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The good life
After 19 years, I'd had enough of London. My partner and I had had our fill of filth and rudeness. Our local newsagent still snarled at us, despite the fact that we had visited his shop 562 times. Beneath our window was a favoured spot for after-pub punch-ups. Now we craved clean air and peace.
Trouble is, deciding to move to the country is easy; actually doing it isn't. For one thing, there's a hell of a lot of country out there. It's massive. And unless you are single, there's the impossible business of hitting on somewhere you both like.
'Cambridgeshire?' I suggested.
'Flat,' barked my husband.
'Devon?'
'Who do we know in Devon?'
'Essex?'
He threw me a withering look. 'Then we'll stay in London,' I snapped, actually warming to the prospect. The more we stabbed pins into maps, the more I feared that this countryside thing had been his idea and that, somehow, I'd been tricked into agreement. It would be OK for him, still working in an office with grown-ups; I'd be at home with brawling children. Would I end up talking to the radiators?
Then my partner was offered work in Scotland. Well, why not? Perhaps this was meant to be. And, as my childhood holidays were spent in Galloway, I imagined that life would take on a permanent holidayish glow.
I was wrong. We arrived in Scotland on a blustery day when the rain seeps into your shoes. This never happened in London. In a city, you can exist for months without stepping outdoors; my former life had been entirely conducted in offices, taxis and licensed premises.
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