Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite writes The Spectator's Real life column.

Real life

28 June 2014 9:00 am

The vet arrived at the stable yard wearing his customary grin. He is the happiest man I know. Of course…

Real life

21 June 2014 8:00 am

‘Well,’ said my gay lawyer friend Stephen as I pulled over to drop him off at Sloane Square Tube, ‘it’s…

Real life

14 June 2014 8:00 am

‘And for my next trick,’ said the Volvo, as I parked at the supermarket and pulled the handle of the…

Real life

7 June 2014 9:00 am

‘What is this, please?’ I said to the estate agent, as he showed me into the building site he was…

Real life

31 May 2014 9:00 am

In the end, I threw my mobile phone into a sack of Chudley’s dog biscuits. It was the only way…

Real life

24 May 2014 9:00 am

‘Ouch!’ said the ex-builder boyfriend. ‘I think something’s bitten me.’ And a few seconds after that, something bit me too.…

Real life

17 May 2014 9:00 am

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly fight any more battles, a pink planning notice is pinned to the lamp…

Real life

10 May 2014 9:00 am

You know you’ve been irreversibly sucked into the ninth circle of horse-owning hell when you find yourself perusing an equine…

Real life

3 May 2014 9:00 am

Really, I do wish people would stagger their baby-making. Absolutely every professional person whose services I have required in the…

Real life

26 April 2014 9:00 am

The mechanic hooked the Volvo up to his special laptop. He had kindly offered to come to me in order…

Real life

19 April 2014 9:00 am

‘Can I go and play with Twiggy?’ If dogs could talk, this is what my spaniel Cydney would be saying…

Real life

12 April 2014 9:00 am

The Volvo has turned into a monster. It always did have a mind of its own. Fellow owners warned me…

Real life

5 April 2014 9:00 am

All the way around a cross country course I went, then I got back, tied the horse up at a…

Real life

29 March 2014 9:00 am

This horse-rearing business is not for the faint-hearted. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought an eight-month-old…

Real life

22 March 2014 9:00 am

‘Question 2. In which year did the Berlin Wall come down?’ shouted the quizmaster. And then he repeated this with…

Real life

15 March 2014 9:00 am

My gay best friend is cheating on me with another woman. I saw him with her the other day and…

Real life

8 March 2014 9:00 am

A letter arrives from David Cameron, asking me to vote by post in the European elections. Presumably he means vote…

Real life

1 March 2014 9:00 am

The look on her face said it all. I can always tell my friend Denise is upset about something when…

Really wild excuses

22 February 2014 9:00 am

The Environment Agency may not be much use to humans, but it does great things for the depressed river mussel

Real life

22 February 2014 9:00 am

‘Quick, let’s slip one in the menu,’ said the builder, taking a leaflet from my handbag after we had paid…

Real life

15 February 2014 9:00 am

‘Please, I beg of you, take me to see André,’ was my mother’s heartfelt plea. And so it was that…

Real life

8 February 2014 9:00 am

Seeing a poodle on the London Underground wearing a red vest with the words ‘Diabetes Medical Dog’ has given me…

Real life

1 February 2014 9:00 am

Drip, drip, drip. The noise of my downstairs London conversion flat, where the plumbing was fitted by turn-of-the-century sadists who…

Real life

25 January 2014 9:00 am

Don’t do it. Do not, whatever you do, even think about doing it. I was happy not doing it. And…

Real life

18 January 2014 9:00 am

‘How often do you de-frag this?’ said the Good Geek in the phone shop. I had gone in finally to…