Kent

I want to move to Kent by the time I'm 40. I don't care if it's a cliche on a Country House scale. Emma and I went on a country walk through the North Downs at the weekend. Somewhere on the train ride out, my depression broke, and I started to turn back into a human being. Ambling down country lanes and hedgerows, bounding like a puppy who had been kept indoors for too long, smiling and greeting the few people we saw. (Oh, but the solitude of the country! Not a madding crowd in sight!)

I grew up on a farm. I think it's fairly natural that in my old age (oh, hush, Anna) I would want to return. Devouring back issues of Country Life no longer suffices. I want green things and mud and big friendly dogs and sheep and orchards and freshly ploughed fields and styes (sp?) and hedgerows and giant ancient oaks like that one we're exploring up there.

They say when a man is tired of London he is tired of life itself. That's bullshit. I just want to be by myself.