After I had been glossing the woodwork for a few days, I started to feel light-headed. It hadn’t occurred to me that the paint was solvent-based, of course. Not until I caught sight of the writing on the tin one evening while painting a bedroom doorframe did it make sense. But it was too late,
When I placed an advert for a lodger I really did expect potential tenants to want to come and see the room. But of course, things have moved on. My theory about human beings is that they are evolving into emoticons. A lot of people now go into seismic avoidance when you try to get
The engineer from Beko arrived and got to work trying to mend the new fridge. Having spent a very long time on the phone to customer services being grilled about my part in its apparent downfall, I was under no illusions that he was going to try and pin this on me. During two extremely
A sea of bright yellow flowers in a sun- drenched meadow… what could be more idyllic? Sadly, all that glisters in the English countryside is most definitely not gold. Ragwort. A few stray stems of this iconic weed growing in a field of grass is enough to draw a stream of expletives from any horse
Beko. I always want to sing that song by Peter Gabriel from the movie about the South African freedom fighter when I look at my new fridge freezer. But the anti-apartheid activist was Biko, and the appliance manufacturer is, in fact, pronounced Becko. I know this because I’ve just had to ring the Beko customer
Stefano came back to paint the front of the house. I have never been so pleased to see his red and white van. He emerged with a startling new crew cut instead of his wavy black hair. He was wearing a red and white T-shirt with his company logo on it. But otherwise, he was
Instead of carpeting the upstairs of the house, I had grass fragments removed from the dogs’ ears. I can’t say I enjoyed the grass removals as much as I might have enjoyed having carpet to walk on. I had picked out a lovely stripy pattern that wouldn’t show the dirt, and was really looking forward
This was going to be about how a major phone company surprised me by delivering a fantastic service. I was quite excited because secretly I have always wanted to be forced to admit that in spite of my rock bottom expectations, all is right with the world. It began when I went into the Carphone
Opening a button of my shirt to get the horse lorry through its MOT is the sort of thing I like to kid myself about. I know I’m not really getting a lorry through its MOT by unbuttoning my shirt, but at my age it makes me feel good to think that I might. So
Finally, I got my hands on a gun. About the size of a sawn-off shotgun it was, just under 20in long, a fine specimen of a weapon. It was surprisingly light and easy to wield. I held it and thought of all that I might now accomplish. Everything I had dreamed of could now become
Every day in every way we are paying for more and more. I realise this increasingly. Things we took for granted as free are added inexorably to the list of things we are charged for. And now we have rural parking charges, by which I don’t mean we are going to be charged for parking
After sanding floorboards for two days I became even more demented than usual. The hand sander was the exact right size to make it horribly arduous but just about possible to do the entire downstairs floor this way, and so I persisted even when I should have given up and hired a large machine. By
Dear customer, we are invading your privacy and sending you this unsolicited email in order to tell you that you are entitled to not get any unsolicited emails from us under new data privacy laws. Here at Easi-Equine (…or fill in name of company you have never contacted and never wanted to have anything to
Now I know how the Karate Kid felt. Two hours after I began oiling the newly laid deck in my garden, I could barely move my arms. Wax on, wax off, I kept repeating. I knelt until I had rib marks in my knees so deep they looked as though they might never come out.
‘What a fabulous tan, where did you get it? said one of my fellow lunch guests as we entered the women’s powder room of a Mayfair hotel. I get this a lot. I want to talk about where I have wintered, or summered, or springed, because although I am poor I am lucky enough to
Laminitis is a lot like alcoholism. Once you cross the line you can’t go back. ‘My name’s Gracie and I’m a grassoholic,’ is what the skewbald pony should be saying at least three times a week to other grassoholics like herself. She hit rock bottom a few months ago at the start of the spring
The first time I saw a woman leading a horse down the lane on a lead, both she and it dressed from head to foot in high viz, she in a crash helmet and safety vest, I thought nothing of it. But that was a good year ago now, and since then the increasing number
Because my mother is always telling me everything will be all right if I join a tennis club, I’ve joined a tennis club. In fact, I haven’t joined a tennis club so much as joined a group of women with a tennis coach who meet once a week for instruction at a court in Surbiton.
‘You’ve got your essay on your back, then?’ said the stable yard owner as I headed out with Darcy on our morning hack. I have taken to wearing a hi-visibility vest even though I swore I would never join the Day-Glo brigade: large women on fat cobs plodding very slowly down the road in so
‘If this madness goes on, I will not be able to leave my house without downloading the app,’ I told my friend, who had been exhorting me to download the app for something. In fact, I had been trying to book a fun ride. Every year, my horsey friends and I go on these cross
