‘Time to begin your adventure with Mr Benn!’ said the letter that came through my door, in a big loopy red font, beneath a picture of a smiling, waving, bowler-hatted Mr Benn. And this would have been fine had I been a five-year-old whose mother had sent off for a box-set of classic Mr Benn,
My tech guy Andy appeared on the doorstep in a puff of smoke. I had just texted him to ask if he was still coming and as I typed the words I heard his footsteps outside. I raced to the door and opened it to find him standing, wizard like, amid a cloud of vapour.
‘This is the one I was thinking of for you,’ said the lady I might feasibly call my mother-in-law, in spirit at least. We were standing in her stable yard in a dingley dell corner of the south of England which is frozen in time. After driving down a winding track between well-tended paddocks, we
The bonfire burned and burned, choking out black smoke, and when my headache got so bad I could barely see straight, I decided I would have to look into it. I say this at every year’s end: I am so tired of fighting. I sometimes wish I could lose this supernatural gift I have for
‘Oh, it’s you!’ said the builder boyfriend to the Tory MP in his shooting jacket, as he made his way down the street handing out leaflets. The BB was standing outside his builder’s yard in suburban south-west London where he enjoys a good argument at election time. During the referendum campaign, he fixed a placard
‘Thank you for calling Surrey Police. We want to help you with your inquiry as quickly as possible. Did you know you can go online…’ That is probably the most depressing sentence in the English language. It is not only preposterous to suggest crime will be better dealt with by a website, it is insulting.
She was a trade union activist, she told me. She wanted a second referendum. Well, they all do. I’m starting to think that none of them got out of bed on 23 June 2016. The pink tinge to her hair alarmed me from the start. I have often said that there is a certain type
My attempt at being Columbo was only taking me so far. In solving the mystery of who raided the barn, I was going round in circles. All I knew was that the thieves took a weirdly useless assortment of items, including four wrecked horse rugs, a broken lunge line and a wheelbarrow with a completely
The night after the fireworks display the barn was raided and our horse rugs were taken. Good job I’ve watched a lot of Columbo because I was able to quickly rule out a reprisal attack for us disagreeing with the fireworks. I believe I can categorically prove it was nothing to do with that, although
Remember remember the 5th of November, when Britain’s most controversial pub chain stages a massive firework display in the middle of fields full of horses. I get the feeling that if my local were any other pub owned by any other chain, the fact that dozens of horse owners have been ringing up to plead
Sitting on the train to Surrey, I was halfway home and texted the builder boyfriend to say when I would be at the station. But instead of texting me back to say he would be there, the BB messaged to inform me that I had driven my car into town. ‘What are you doing on
‘This is your captain speaking, welcome aboard this flight to London Gatwick. As there is a passenger on our flight today with a severe nut allergy we will not be serving any nuts or nut products for the duration of the flight.’ That was the first announcement the pilot made, ahead of anything about flying
Just before Tara left us, the old chestnut mare used to enjoy standing at the bottom gate watching the sun go down. So when I caught Gracie the skewbald pony doing the same thing one evening, a look of complete serenity on her face, I felt a shiver through my spine. I’m used to my
Inspired by Harry and Meghan I decided to get on a plane. I hadn’t been anywhere for so long it was becoming ridiculous, and neither had my other half. No kids, no trips, no new cars… ‘If my carbon footprint gets any lower I’m going to have to eat coal,’ the builder boyfriend said, putting
When I was growing up, my Italian grandfather was my favourite person. He taught me to play a mean game of draughts. He told me stories about his childhood in a remote mountain village in Abruzzo. I couldn’t hear often enough about how he got the deep scar across the bridge of his nose. He
The Union Jack is flying on the front of my house. After a long discussion with the local council, planning officials confirmed that anyone can fly the national emblem on their home, so long as they don’t use a flagpole, which requires planning permission. I was advised by an official to drape the flag from
‘If we are going to Westminster to riot,’ I told my Brexit-voting friends over dinner at the Thai restaurant at our local pub, ‘then we are going to have to work out where to park. I don’t want to get a ticket.’ We shifted our noodles around our plates and chewed our sizzling beef strips
‘The reason vets are so expensive now,’ explained the vet in her snazzy green uniform, ‘is because we can do so much more.’ I was standing in the waiting room of the veterinary practice with the silly name: the corporate, expensively branded chain vet I said I would never go to, but have to when
We are the only Brexiteers in the village. That, at least, is how it feels. Out they come, the far left bullies, on to the streets of Westminster waving their placards and calling for the referendum result to be cancelled. And that is bad enough. But inside the suburban Surrey homes of Middle England the
Once upon a time, in a country that didn’t run itself, a horse supplement company invented a cure for laminitis. This cure, let’s call it LamiSafe, was like the holy grail of horse-care products because when administered to ponies who previously went lame on lush summer grass, LamiSafe prevented lameness and the pony was suddenly