I just can’t face one more argument with anyone, ever again

The cyclist was on the wrong side of the road coming towards me head-on.

It was a winding country lane with blind bends and as I came round one, there was the cyclist, pedalling furiously along the lane on his hard right hand side.

I slammed on my brakes, but instead of beeping my horn, I thought: ‘Let it go, I can’t be bothered. I just can’t face one more argument, ever again, with anyone.’

I never seem to get disputes one at a time. Troubles always come to me in multitudes. I fight at least two major battles on behalf of someone else or myself at any given time.

I’m currently getting all kinds of flak for defending a 64-year-old former bricklayer in his efforts to attend support group meetings in Surrey where some members seem to be saying they don’t want him because he has criminal convictions and they’re a better class of alcoholic.

And then there’s this stable yard row, where the landowner evicted us for refusing to let the children in the neighbouring house, which she also owns, have unsupervised access to our horses.

Like all Surrey disputes, the people involved are being thoroughly obnoxious. We cleared out of the yard this week and when all was empty and neat, the paddocks harrowed and the horses moved to a new field down the road, the landowner did not turn up for the handing over of the keys.

She rang two hours later hysterical about her bad day. You want to have the day we’re having, dear, I felt like saying. We’ve had to leave a stable yard with four horses because we won’t allow the neighbours’ children to trespass under the fence and get kicked and injured.

Instead of which we said it was no trouble at all, we had left the keys in the store room and we wished her well.