My husband would kill me if he ever knew about this blog. I have been reading the blogs for a few months now and wondering if I dared have a go. What comes over from so many of you is the overwhelming sense of relief and release at being able to talk about your lives when, frankly, there is no-one else who will really listen. I grew up living in the countryside, a farmer’s daughter, a farmer’s granddaughter, so I know its ways – though my childhood was a million miles from the idyllic lives so many of you describe. It was more Stella Gibbons than Joanna Trollope, in more ways than one. But that’s a whole life away.
I thought I had escaped. I ran to the city and figured I’d found heaven. No pigs to feed, no chickens to nurture, no draughty old farmhouse with gales blowing through ill-fitting windows. No all-pervasive smell of silage; no claggy mud splattered over every single pair of jeans.

They say the city is isolating, they say the city is dirty but I loved it. I revelled in the shops, in the restaurants, in the choice, in the culture.
A fleapit cinema may seen charming when you’ve lived on a diet of multi-screens but being able to see foreign films, art films, anything whenever you wanted was divine. I could go on and on, but I don’t want to bore you. I kept a soft spot for the country, after all it ran through my veins, but I never once wanted to go back.

In time I grew to hate my job but it was indoors and it kept me clean and warm. My nails grew long and it was worth painting them. I wore high heels and skirts for the first time ever. I had a lovely flat and the only bit of green was my window boxes. Then I met him. Aidan.
Tall, broad-shouldered, loose-limbed – all the clichés. Floppy dark blonde hair. It was summer and he had rolled up his white linen shirt to reveal lean muscled forearms (I have a thing about arms). He was wearing a dark suit, jacket slung jauntily over his arm, and I had him down as a banker or an ad exec – something deeply urban at any rate. He looked at me with a pair of the most gorgeous hazel eyes and I was lost in a second.
He asked me out and dinner at the River Café led to weekends in Paris and before I knew it he was proposing. I thought it was heaven. He had an apartment near Canary Wharf and he did indeed work with money. We lived the life of Riley (whoever he may be), partying, eating out, jetting off for weekends away. I suppose the only cloud on our horizon was that we wanted children but I couldn’t conceive. My gynaecologist put it down to stress and said she was sure everything would be fine. Stressful lives, all of that. She packed us off to a fertility specialist who said much the same. However he gave us a bout of tests so I’m awaiting the results of those with baited breath.

Then he broke the bombshell. He’d bought a farm. No discussion, no ‘do you think we should?’ Just gone off and bought it.

OK, not a big farm. Like so many, the land had mainly been sold off or rented out, but what was left was a sodding great farmhouse with about fifteen acres of wood, stream and pasture. He had a great plan to go with it. I would give up my job which, as he pointed out, I hated, and could try to write the novel I’ve been banging on about for years. Also, without the job-stress and overload, we’d be able to pop out babies like the proverbial peas from pods.
‘But I love the city,’ I said.
‘But you’ll love this more,’ he said.
‘But I grew up in the country. I hate it.’
‘This is a different county. Different people. Different landscape. You’ll love it.’
‘But it’s lonely in the country.’
‘But I’ll be there.’

When he gets a bee in his bonnet, there’s no stopping him. I knew from past experience that the best thing to do was to go along with it in the full and certain knowledge that, once faced with the muddy reality, he would swiftly change his mind.
So I chucked in my job and we sold our lovely apartment. It had to be quick as the madman had taken out a bridging loan. Fortunately (or unfortunately) our place sold quickly and so I found myself, once again, stuck in the middle of nowhere, the disgruntled owner of a rambling cross-passage farmhouse that distinctly sags in the middle.

I think that’s enough for today. Please don’t feel you have to comment on this. You don’t even have to read it. Honestly, I won’t mind. I won’t be able to do all the polite return commenting much either, if that makes you feel better. It’s really just for me. Just to unload a bit. You all seem so totally happy in your rural lives and I just find myself wishing I could swap places with the lady in New York. Still this website seems a broad church and, who knows, maybe through you I’ll come to love my life as a born-again countrywoman.