theatres, cinemas, art galleries and above all the Jalalaya Indian restaurant delivery service. In the country, if you crave culture, or curry, you have to work harder But it’s there 15. They have four-wheel drives in the country, too Victoria Wood’s stand-up shtick includes a hilarious assault on the north London mothers who take their children to the Fluffy Bunny Montessori school in vast Range Rovers with bumpers built to withstand marauding rhino. So it’s nice to move to a part of the country where such vehicles are necessary Not that we’ve yet encountered marauding rhino Just a runaway bullock 16. Ground elder is a damn nuisance I have begun to discover my inner Monty Don this past year. As keen as I was to see colour in our city garden, it was hard, within a 30ft square, to awaken whatever gardening instincts lay dormant.

We now have several acres, and although I am still a novice, I have taken to wearing a pair of secateurs much as Billy the Kid wore his left-handed gun. The vegetable garden in particular is a source of pride, mixed with backache 17. The cost of living in the country is no cheaper than the city At first we thought it was Take the cost of parking. Although the good folk of Leominster fought the introduction of parking charges tooth and nail, 20p an hour doesn’t seem punitive to someone who has lived in London, where you’ve pretty much run up 20p’s worth of parking before you get out of the car. But such savings are cancelled out by our vastly increased expenditure on petrol 18. Pampas grass in your front garden is a sign that you are swingers It was at a dinner in aid of the Docklow Church repair fund, oddly enough, that a woman asked me if I’d be prepared to throw my car keys into the middle of the table.

“You know what we’re like in the country,” she said, with a glint in her eye. “Anything for a bit of excitement.” She was joking, of course, but in the subsequent conversation about wife-swapping, someone said that clumps of pampas grass in front of a house indicate that the residents are prepared to swing However, this begs more questions than it answers. What if you happen to buy a house with pampas grass already at the front? And more alarmingly, what happens if your pampas grass is, as ours is, at the back? 19 The country is full of flies Nobody told us this 20. Writing a weekly newspaper column about your life in the country is a risky business My Tales of the Country column gets loads of feedback and most of it, I’m pleased to say, is positive and often helpful, as in tips on how to deal with broody hens. But I get a few nasty letters, too, and obviously have upset some people along the way, both city-dwellers who think me disparaging, and country folk who find me condescending I try not to be either. But all I can do is apologise, assure you that, alas, it probably will happen again, and take solace in a glass of cold Herefordshire cider Cheers
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