Real life
‘Can I ask you why you don’t want a smart phone?’ said the chirpy manager, as I stood blinking in…
Real life
One of the village vegans gave the bacon sandwich resting on top of the recycling bin outside my house an…
Real life
Last night I dreamt I went on holiday again. It seemed to me I stood by the departure gate, and…
Real life
Someone else with my name is wreaking havoc with my attempts to control the Twitter account I don’t want. Obviously,…
Real life
‘Did you hear it?’ said a friend of mine, red-faced with the flush of a piece of news she couldn’t…
Real life
The streetlighting engineer walked up and down outside my house trying to work out who was right: me, or my…
Real life
Surprise, surprise. The person who had the shield taken out of the street light so it shone back into my…
Real life
The street lamp as bright as the Dog Star is back to its full glare outside my house. I won…
Real life
We were enjoying our evening at the overpriced gastropub until a woman in a dark uniform appeared at our table.…
Real life
My pro-vaxxer friends have been a lot nicer to me since they started testing positive for Covid. I’m calling my…
Real life
‘My phone says I can’t go out until Tuesday, so I can’t come and meet you,’ said my friend. And…
Real life
We had gone to visit a friend at a stable yard on a country estate on a crisp autumn Sunday.…
Real life
The horse lorry arrived and lowered its ramp — and I stood in front of it knowing that my thoroughbred…
Real life
The filling station on the road out of the village was like a scene from Mad Max. People were all…
Real life
British Gas finally agreed to service my boiler, for no reason I could make out other than the boiler wasn’t…
Real life
After the landowner told us to be out in three weeks, then admitted we had three months to move our…
Real life
The two-acre smallholding lived up to its name in being very, very small indeed. We had to squeeze around the…
Real life
‘I’ve got COPD,’ said a friend of mine, not elaborating at all as I stared at him waiting for him…
Real life
We began searching for the farm of our dreams in Wales as we planned our escape from Surrey. The problem…
Real life
The letter arrived in a hand-addressed envelope, inside of which was a handwritten note. After everything we have been through,…
Real life
If it’s true that the virus finds your weak spot, it has lodged itself like an evil monkey in my…
Real life
‘Contact a GP if you’re worried about symptoms four weeks after having Covid.’ That was the NHS quote on the…
Real life
The woman pulled up in her flashy 4×4 which was meandering along the farm track in that way people have…
Real life
The doctor’s receptionist was adamant. ‘If you had not had the vaccine you would have been even more ill with…
Real life
The scaffolding pole across the public footpath led to a farcical conversation with the local council. I had been walking…
