Moving house

‘You’re only allowed one roll of packing tape per customer,’ said the lady in the local hardware store. The builder boyfriend was holding five rolls, at £2 each, thinking it was reasonable to buy a tenner’s worth, or even that she might be pleased, in line with the normal rules of commerce. But this lady and her husband are notorious for not allowing you to buy the precious things of their shop. I had to beg them to sell me six laundry bags a few weeks ago. Now we had gone through all the tape we had bought from the self-storage firm where we got our packing boxes and we

We were about to exchange contracts when I got a call from the estate agent to tell me that another list of queries had come in. I took one look at it and decided I had better not read it properly, because I saw the words ‘wind turbines’. In a few decades no conveyancing will be possible and no one willbe able to move house ‘What the hell is this?’ I asked the agent, who was stuttering: ‘Oh dear… calm down…’ ‘Don’t tell a woman to calm down!’ I shouted. And he apologised profusely. I felt sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault. The buyer’s solicitor had gone on holiday