Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite writes The Spectator's Real life column.

Real life

5 March 2022 9:00 am

Trees glorious trees. People can’t get enough of them. They don’t want to take care of trees, they just want…

Real life

26 February 2022 9:00 am

‘A diary?’ said the lady in the chintzy gift shop, pronouncing the word very much as Edith Evans said ‘handbag’…

Real life

19 February 2022 9:00 am

‘Do you have any questions?’ said the man at the insurance company after an hour of me trying to take…

Real life

12 February 2022 9:00 am

After most of Islington moved to Wales, it was foolish of me to think about following. But the need to…

Real life

5 February 2022 9:00 am

After an incredible 13 emails, Vodafone decided that I was who I was claiming to be, and refunded my money.…

Real life

29 January 2022 9:00 am

After launching an investigation into my missing phone, Vodafone informed me it could not deal with me any further until…

Real life

22 January 2022 9:00 am

‘Can I ask you why you don’t want a smart phone?’ said the chirpy manager, as I stood blinking in…

Real life

15 January 2022 9:00 am

One of the village vegans gave the bacon sandwich resting on top of the recycling bin outside my house an…

Real life

8 January 2022 9:00 am

Last night I dreamt I went on holiday again. It seemed to me I stood by the departure gate, and…

Real life

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Someone else with my name is wreaking havoc with my attempts to control the Twitter account I don’t want. Obviously,…

Real life

11 December 2021 9:00 am

‘Did you hear it?’ said a friend of mine, red-faced with the flush of a piece of news she couldn’t…

Real life

4 December 2021 9:00 am

The streetlighting engineer walked up and down outside my house trying to work out who was right: me, or my…

Real life

27 November 2021 9:00 am

Surprise, surprise. The person who had the shield taken out of the street light so it shone back into my…

Real life

20 November 2021 9:00 am

The street lamp as bright as the Dog Star is back to its full glare outside my house. I won…

Real life

13 November 2021 9:00 am

We were enjoying our evening at the overpriced gastropub until a woman in a dark uniform appeared at our table.…

Real life

6 November 2021 9:00 am

My pro-vaxxer friends have been a lot nicer to me since they started testing positive for Covid. I’m calling my…

Real life

30 October 2021 9:00 am

‘My phone says I can’t go out until Tuesday, so I can’t come and meet you,’ said my friend. And…

Real life

23 October 2021 9:00 am

We had gone to visit a friend at a stable yard on a country estate on a crisp autumn Sunday.…

Real life

16 October 2021 9:00 am

The horse lorry arrived and lowered its ramp — and I stood in front of it knowing that my thoroughbred…

Real life

9 October 2021 9:00 am

The filling station on the road out of the village was like a scene from Mad Max. People were all…

Real life

2 October 2021 9:00 am

British Gas finally agreed to service my boiler, for no reason I could make out other than the boiler wasn’t…

Real life

25 September 2021 9:00 am

After the landowner told us to be out in three weeks, then admitted we had three months to move our…

Real life

18 September 2021 9:00 am

The two-acre smallholding lived up to its name in being very, very small indeed. We had to squeeze around the…

Real life

11 September 2021 9:00 am

‘I’ve got COPD,’ said a friend of mine, not elaborating at all as I stared at him waiting for him…

Real life

4 September 2021 9:00 am

We began searching for the farm of our dreams in Wales as we planned our escape from Surrey. The problem…