The Desperate Diary of a Country Housewife - Daisy Waugh

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It’s too late now. And the fact is I wasn’t texting financiers at the time, and it didn’t occur to me either—or not until just now (back at Fin’s parents and after a long bath)—but I now think Richard the estate agent was probably lying when he said the house was already ours. We’d not been due to exchange and complete until the day’s end, or so I had understood. And frankly, what with the rain and the broken gutter and the outrageously neglected garden, the house wasn’t exactly looking…

      Well it’s still beautiful and everything, and big—and it’s going to be lovely. I’m sure it’s going to be lovely. But this morning it wasn’t really looking its best. It was looking pretty awful. In fact there was a moment, as we stood on that leaking porch, and I still had bits of giant slug attached to my foot, when all I really wanted to do was run.

      The feeling didn’t last. Of course. Of course not. In any case the house is ours now, for certain. Gordon Brown has taken his monumental Stamp Tax. He has already tossed it into his big, black hole, never to be seen again.

      And the house is ours. There can be no turning back.

       September Paradise

      We’ve been in Paradise ten full days already and the sun has shone for every one of them. The sun is shining now. It’s beaming down on us, and there are no slugs anywhere to be seen. Dora and Ripley are outside, and I can hear their squeals of laughter. Both seem to be very happy at their new school. Their new classmates are sweet and welcoming, and noticeably more innocent and less bratty than the little Londoners we left behind.

      Ditto the mothers, actually.

      Not one of whom, incidentally, seems to work. Their husbands, like Finley, commute back and forth to the capital, and they stay at home, just being mothers, and being really nice. Oh dear.

      I’ve noticed they don’t like it when I swear.

      Fin is in London again, and plans to be all week. But I’ve just ordered the box set for Series 5 of The West Wing, and I still have three episodes of Series 4 to go, so I won’t miss him…In my next life I plan to be a press secretary at the White House, with no children, sadly, but lots of clever colleagues and lots of Armani suits. In the meantime, all is good in Paradise. Tomorrow, after school, Ripley, Dora and I are going to pick blackberries in the fields behind the house. For the first time ever, I think, I begin to feel almost smug about my mothering abilities, and the children’s upbringing. It’s all so wonderfully wholesome it makes my eyes water.

      I just wonder why we didn’t move down here years ago.

       September 20th

      The children’s nametags arrived! Unfortunately I’ve got to do a book plug/radio interview all the way over in Plymouth this evening—assuming, that is, that Fin arrives back from London in time to babysit. Desperately need to get hold of a regular babysitter from somewhere—but where? I’ve asked numerous mothers, but they all seem to use the same person. Or there’s one other girl somebody suggested, but she lives twenty-five miles away.

      Any case, I will sew on the nametags tomorrow. Failing that will definitely do them over the weekend.

       September 23rd

      Fin’s train was delayed, so I had to cancel the radio interview. Shame, as I said to Fin. Among numerous other things. But it made me stir my stumps on the babysitting front, and I think I’ve found someone at last. She’s only slightly younger than I am and she has a couple of children, though she was a bit vague as to their whereabouts. I think maybe they live part time with the father. She has a disconcertingly soft voice so I can never hear a word she says. Also, she is strangely lifeless. Almost slug-like, in fact. Without being rude. Doesn’t seem to react at ordinary speeds—or at all, really, to anything anyone says.

      But I’m sure she’s fine. Got her name off a card in the launderette and she showed me a couple of references. Funnily enough she looks incredibly familiar. I’m convinced I’ve met her before somewhere, but she denies it.

      Not that we have much call for a babysitter at the moment. Or, to be honest, any call at all. But the Plymouth thing was annoying. I’d been looking forward to a few bright lights and so on. A bit of flattery. In any case, it’s reassuring to know that we could now call on someone if, by some happy chance, Finley and I had the extraordinary good fortune ever to be invited anywhere again.

      Every time I turn the corner and look up at the house I feel my heart lift. Because it’s beautiful. And because the children are happy here. And because we have finally, at long last, escaped from London.

      We had planned to wait and get all the refurbishment work done before we invited friends down to stay with us, but now that we’re more or less settled I can’t really see the point. Apart from the fact that we seem incapable of finding any builders, the house is perfectly comfortable as it is. It may be a bit short on furniture, but who cares? We’ve got a big sofa. And a telly. I’m going to buy a couple of extra beds and some sleeping bags and persuade Hatty (and family) to come and stay as soon as possible. I miss her. I miss all my friends. It’s the only serious blot on an otherwise blemishless landscape.

       October 10th

      Bit of a culture shock at the weekend. Maybe it doesn’t signify anything, but I can’t stop thinking about it. The Mothers had told me about a stables which they all swore was the single riding school in the area worth using. So. The children have been desperate to take up riding. I rang the place up. And a woman at the other end advised me, with a certain amount of relish, that beginners’ lessons were 100 per cent booked up, now and for the entire foreseeable future. She said that, for £10 per name, children could be put on to a waiting list. I complained, but it didn’t move her much.

      She softened a little, though, once I’d given my credit card details, and suggested it might be worthwhile just turning up one weekend and waiting around, on the off chance of a late cancellation. So—Finley was away. That’s what we did on Saturday.

      Horrible! It felt like we were walking into a Barbie Doll theme park. The yard was so tidy it ought to have had a pink plastic logo swinging over the front gate. Also it was teeming with lady-clones, all of them sporting the same tasteful blonde highlights and clean, green, calf-flattering Wellington boots. There must have been fifteen fourwheel drives in the car park and fifteen super-mummies milling around, fixating on the buckles of their children’s safety hats. I recognised a handful of the women from school, of course. The question is, though, Where did all the others come from? I had no idea there were so many in the area. And I’m not sure whether to be depressed or very depressed by the discovery. What the hell’s going on?

      In any case, the children and I hung around for about an hour, patting ponies and being pretty much ignored, until finally a lovely, rosy-cheeked teenager came over to talk to us. There had been no last-minute cancellations, she said, but she offered, out of kindness, to put the children on top of an old donkey and lead them round the yard a couple of times.

      Ripley and Dora were having the time of their lives, squeezed together on top of the old donkey, giggling blissfully as it slowly plodded along. They’ve never ridden before. They were thrilled. Rosy Cheeks was giving them a little impromptu lesson, and the love was flowing between all of us, Rosy Cheeks, Ripley and Dora, the donkey, even me.

      But then suddenly, careering out of nowhere, there came a very thin, very angry woman.

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