‘What’s wrong with your lot?’ asked the blacksmith as he was shoeing our horses. And we had to admit that we really didn’t know. 

Don’t be telling an Irish blacksmith that he might not be good enough for you and your rescue nags

We came to Ireland to get away from liberal lunacy but the other English people who come here seem to be intent on bringing it with them. The blacksmith shook his head.

He said he had just been to an English lady further down the peninsula who wanted him to trim a few old donkeys and llamas.

When he arrived, he got out of the car and she wafted up to him in a kaftan. The blacksmith looked baffled as he explained it. He obviously had no idea how far the rich liberal Brits have gone with their homage to everything ethnic, while not having the faintest clue what they are on about.

He looked utterly bemused as he described how this lady wafted up to him in the rain and mud in a kaftan, scarf atop her head, and called out a haughty greeting, then demanded in cut-glass English: ‘You do have insurance, don’t you?’

The blacksmith, in his grimy waistcoat and blackened jeans, told her in typically forthright brogue that of course he had insurance. ‘Do you think I’d be driving around without it? I’ve got road tax as well, and this truck’s been tested and it’s road worthy.’

The kaftan lady said: ‘No, my dear fellow. I mean farrier’s insurance. You do have farrier’s insurance, don’t you?’

Whereupon he looked her raggedy donkeys up and down, then turned and got back in his truck, shouting at her that she could shove it. ‘What the feck is that all about?’ the blacksmith asked us.

I said I really couldn’t say. Maybe she planned on tripping over her kaftan while holding a donkey that was having its hooves trimmed and wanted to be sure she could claim on his insurance for the personal injury to her chakras, as well as the emotional trauma and post-traumatic stress to the donkey.

In any case, how downright embarrassing. I told the blacksmith how sorry I was. And I’ve nothing against someone running away to become a hippy.

Get yourself a few donkeys and a llama or two if you must. Go and do it in West Cork, by all means. But don’t be telling an Irish blacksmith that he might not be good enough for you and your rescue nags.

As a matter of fact, this particular blacksmith is the best shoer of horses I have ever known, and I’ve been through dozens. Every fancy farrier with every kind of qualification has tried and failed with my thoroughbred. But this chap puts a set of shoes on her that are so perfect, and make her so sound, it is nothing short of a conjuring trick.

He takes his time, and chats to the horse quietly as he works. And every so often he straightens up and chats to us, which was how he came to tell us about the kaftan-wearing donkey owner.

He carried on the tale as he came into the kitchen afterwards for his cup of tea and roll-up cigarette. We always set the world to rights like this.

He and the hay man are our best friends, together with the old Irish woman down the lane who greeted us when we first arrived by shouting at us in the supermarket car park that she was worried we were going to put llamas in the garden.

I get it. The English who come here tend to be the sort who hug trees, paint pictures in mixed media and re-wild their land (let it go to wrack and ruin) while going on about how cruel farming is.

It will take a while before we can demonstrate to the Irish that we want to keep the wild as far away as possible by working as hard as we can to keep our land nice.

As for the house, the biggest problem we’ve got is trying to persuade tradesmen who don’t need the money, because they’ve got a few cattle and the subsidies that come with them, that it’s worth their bother contending with the latest barmy English blow-ins.

I sat and waited all night for the plumber who was going to come round. And heaven knows what would have happened if he had, because the builder boyfriend was in London and I was so desperate for a hot bath I would have done pretty much anything.

But at 9 p.m. he rang and said he was too tired… and I knew he meant too tired to deal with an English woman who was, in all likelihood, wafting about in a kaftan, wanting to show him her llamas.

So he stood me up, which perhaps was just as well.