The Country Life

Fortunately where we now live is the perfect antidote to the stresses of moving, renting out our London home and buying a car. Rolling hills all around, walks from our garden to waterfalls, cloughs and moorland, making mini rock gardens, sailing paper boats, picking plums and stewing them on the Aga... So far, we definitely get how people cope with living in remote places.

I say remote. Our landlady lives a stone's throw away, mows our lawn with her mini tractor and employs a gardener to sort out our flowerbeds. She's just fitted smoke alarms at our request, mended the shower and brought round a pole for the washing line that she's provided. Then there are the 20 and counting other people that live up this track. Still it's remote in Stokey terms.