If you’re a Londoner, you will have grasped the full dramatic force of this statement and will now be reeling and gasping. Wailing, even.
If you’re not a Londoner, you’ll probably be thinking – ‘So?’ Do not think ‘So?’ This is a big thing. Massive. We’ve both lived in London for 10 years. I have never lived anywhere else in England but London. And London has nothing, really, to do with England. It’s a whole self-contained country. A world.
So when I say ‘We’ve left London’, think of it like that scene in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves rips the electrode umbilical cord out of his spine.
And now for something completely different
To illustrate this point: We had just, just signed the lease – the ink still fresh on the paper. We turned to leave the estate agents and right there, in broad daylight, a Morris dancer walked past. No-one else around: just a silent village street and a Morris dancer, in full regalia, bells a-jingle.
Imagine our surprise.
Phoenix House
We live in the Cotswolds, in a little stone cottage in a little stone village, Westchester*. It’s Cotswold stone: luscious, buttery, the colour of lions.
I would love to be able to give you a rational breakdown of why we chose Westchester – we love the Cotswolds; it’s on a London line; we hate suburbia and would rather live in the heart of a village than the dreary outskirts of a town.
The truth is, we got snowed in here during a weekend away. We had a brilliant night in the Rose and Crown. Cunningly, the estate agent is just over the road from the pub. There was a cottage to rent in the window called Phoenix House (such a good juju name, don’t you think?)
We couldn’t resist.
*Not its real name; thinly disguised in case I hear any particularly scurrilous gossip...
