Here’s what I’ve learned in 2014

The countryside is all very well so long as you know you can leave it. Funnily enough, exactly the same can be said for the town. I realise I have spent the entire year trying to decide whether to sell up and move from London to the wilds of Surrey. Or stay put in Balham. I’ve spent more evenings on Zoopla than can possibly be healthy. And now I think about it, I guess the reason I have struggled so hard to make a choice is that town and country are dependent on each other to produce their own special magic.

I cannot enjoy the country unless I know I can leave the mud, muck and gossip behind and escape to London. And I cannot enjoy London unless I know I can run away from the liberal lefties, abusive cyclists and endless box junctions to find solace in the mud.

As such, it is possible that the place where I am happiest is the A3. For it is on the A3 that I know I am escaping to somewhere better. It is a great relief to finally work this out. And because it is the end of the year and I’m feeling reflective, I thought I would do a quick review of all the other things I have learned in 2014.

First, I cannot fight more than one legal battle. I may have been able to fight the couple who claim I injured them in a prang on Streatham High Road before I began fighting HS2 Ltd for compensation for the collapse in value of my parents’ home. But I cannot fight both together. I know this because I tried and as the two legal battles collided, and I was emailing two sets of lawyers at once, a girl from an estate agent in Cobham rang to inquire about my house search, as these people are apt to do, and I screamed into the phone: ‘Why?! Why are you doing this to meeeeeee!!’

Clearly, one battle will have to go and if I must give in to someone, it’s going to have to be the Slobs, who three years on still haven’t issued proceedings properly.