The spine-chilling omens have been evident for many months now: a tendency to study the property pages with far more attention than she has displayed in the past; a heightened interest in TV shows such as Escape To The Country and Location, Location, Location.
Plus, the odd, casual observation thrown out over supper — ‘Isn’t it amazing how much you can get for your money in and around St Neots?’
No, there’s no getting away from it. Mrs U is hatching a plot to shatter the blissful peace of my semi-retirement, by uprooting us from the London semi where we’ve lived for more than 30 years and dumping us somewhere in the countryside.
Until recently, I’ve been able to fend off her none-too-subtle hints with a non-committal ‘hmmm’ and a swift change of the subject. But since this wretched lockdown began, her nudges have become ever more insistent and harder to ignore.
‘It’s not so bad working from home, is it?’ (Yes, it jolly well is. I desperately miss my colleagues and the office gossip — not to mention the whiz kids in the IT department, permanently on hand to unfreeze my screen or fix the printer.)
Mrs U is hatching a plot to shatter the blissful peace of my semi-retirement, by uprooting us from the London semi where we’ve lived for more than 30 years and dumping us somewhere in the countryside (file image)
Frantic
Or again: ‘Isn’t this clean air heavenly? It’s almost like living in the country.’ (If she smoked as much as I do, she’d barely notice the quality of the air.)
Least subtle of all, now that three of our four boys are off the premises: ‘We don’t really need all this space in the house any more, do we?’ Or: ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a bigger garden?’ (Oh, why won’t she consider the bother of moving, or the nightmare of starting the business of homemaking from scratch, all over again, in our sixties?)
Mind you, my wife is far from alone among urbanites in pining for the rural idyll of her imagination. Since the start of the lockdown, estate agents have reported an ‘unparalleled’ surge in demand for country homes from people who live in towns and cities.
It’s easy to understand why. Not only have countless Zoom-friendly office staff adapted happily to working from home — unlike me (GET DOWN, MINNIE, YOU BORING DOG! I CAN’T TAKE YOU FOR A WALK UNTIL I’VE FINISHED MY COLUMN!)
There’s also a widespread perception that our country cousins, safely isolated from densely populated breeding-grounds of disease, have enjoyed a far cushier time under state-imposed house arrest than families cooped up in tower blocks.
Over to Rupert Sweeting, head of national country sales at Knight Frank, where enquiries for rural homes have apparently shot up by 30-40 per cent since the lockdown started to ease. ‘Our country offices are frantic organising viewings back to back,’ he says. ‘It has got to the stage where we are telling people there is only any point in viewing a house if you are a cash buyer or your house is already on the market.
‘Families living in cities and towns have spoken to friends living in the country who have been much better off in lockdown and have been working from home. Those without children have moved to their parents’ houses and realised the benefits… There is also some nervousness about a second wave of infection.’
Other estate agents have reported a widespread yearning for country life, with Savills suggesting the lockdown may be fuelling a ‘rural renaissance’ among people who have been stuck with their families in small terraced houses and flats.
In a poll of 700 buyers and sellers, the agency found that four in ten of them think a village location more appealing than previously, while more than half of parents with school-age children (54 per cent) now find the idea of moving to the countryside more attractive than before Covid-19 struck.
All this I understand. Indeed, a mass exodus from the concrete jungle to green pastures would make perfect sense if lockdowns were to become regular features of our lives.
There’s also a widespread perception that our country cousins, safely isolated from densely populated breeding-grounds of disease, have enjoyed a far cushier time under state-imposed house arrest than families cooped up in tower blocks (file image)
Slurping
But if the politicians’ panic-stricken reaction to this cruel virus is a once-in-a-lifetime aberration, as I pray that it is, I wonder how long it will be before some who flee from our cities start thinking they’ve made a terrible mistake.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the British countryside with all my heart. Though I was born in London, and the capital has been my home for most of my 66 years on this Earth, at various stages in my bachelor youth I was lucky enough to live in Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Devon, Somerset and Suffolk.
I’ve also spent wonderful summer holidays in Yorkshire, Shropshire, Dorset, Anglesey (sorry, Ynys Mon), Norfolk, Essex, Warwickshire, Ayrshire, Midlothian, Aberdeenshire, Antrim, Fermanagh and Down — and I daresay other counties, too, which for the moment have slipped my senile mind. So I quite understand the lure of mountains, forests, fields and cliffside walks.
There were even times, as our four boys were growing up, when I shared Mrs U’s fantasies of an idyllic rural life — sharing gossip with the village postmistress, running the tombola at the church fete, having friends down from town for the weekend, watching cricket on the green, slurping a winter pint or two beside a blazing log fire under the ancient beams of the local… You get the picture.
But, let’s face it, the realities of country living don’t always live up to the dreams.
These days, the chances are that the poor old village postmistress has been driven out of business by vindictive managers at Post Office HQ, falsely accusing her of embezzlement because they were too blinkered to see that their shiny new computer system was riddled with flaws.
As for that charming old pub, frequented for centuries by the local farmers, fishermen and blacksmiths, will it ever reopen after the coronavirus terror? Or will the lockdown be the final straw for them, after the Breathalyser and the smoking ban, also imposed by our masters at Westminster? I’m not optimistic.
Amused
And I ask you, my darling wife: what will become of us if we get too old or ill to drive? We can forget about country buses to take us to the GP’s surgery or the supermarket, that’s for sure — unless we’re prepared to wait for every other Wednesday to come round. To all intents and purposes, it will be permanent lockdown.
No, the countryside is lovely for a fortnight’s holiday at the height of summer — and especially for those of us fortunate enough to enjoy robust health. But I suspect it’s not half so much fun in midwinter, when the boiler’s on the blink, the fridge is empty and our arthritis is playing up.
Say what you like about the miseries of urban life, but we have plumbers, takeaway restaurants and doctors galore, just minutes away, to see to our every need.
And if we get bored, well, there are galleries, pubs and entertainments aplenty to keep us amused, just a short walk or a hop on the bus away.
Or at least there were, before the world went mad. I trust that some will survive.
Enough to say that I’m hoping Mrs U’s yearning to uproot us will prove nothing more than a passing whim, engendered by these strange times.
One thing worries me, though. It’s not only interest in country properties that has shot up since the lockdown began. According to Co-op Legal Services, there’s been a 42 per cent increase in queries about divorce since March 23, while online searches for ‘I want a divorce’ are up by 154 per cent.
I have a feeling that I can’t carry on fobbing Mrs U off for much longer with a non-committal ‘hmmm’. So if my future despatches come to you from the depths of the countryside, you’ll know the reason why.