I've found my dream house in the country, but it has one fatal flaw
The Cornish house is an old granite farmhouse beside an orchard with a stream running through it, surrounded by fields. Tanya cannot make the viewing, so I take her seven-year-old son. He is the only other person I know in Cornwall. Still, it’s good to have a second opinion.
‘Do you get all of it?’ he asks as the Honda bounces down the drive.
‘Yes!’ I tell him. ‘Do you get that?’ he asks, pointing at the owner’s Range Rover. ‘No,’ I say. He looks disappointed.
The farmhouse is everything my east London ‘cupboard’ is not. In Dalston, my flat screamed with traffic, sirens and clubbers 24 hours a day – that was why I bought it, so I could go to theatres, bookshops and bars any night of the week, drinking absinthe cocktails, going gay clubbing, then crashing into bed. I ate out almost every night – I had to, the kitchen was too small to cook in. I cultivated a love/hate relationship with my hipster neighbours, complaining about their coffee shops with ampersands in the name, while drinking soya lattes in them; teasing them for their dog-yoga classes, then taking Stringerbelle.
In Cornwall, the only neighbours are fields of cows; beyond, the wild Atlantic. The kitchen is bigger than my whole London flat. There is a garden with a vegetable patch. ‘Do you garden?’ the estate agent asks, apparently serious. I don’t tell him the closest I’ve come is the cactus shop opposite my flat, ironically named Prick.
The farmhouse has dark beams, light flagstone floors and a woodfuelled Rayburn. Outside is an old piggery. I push open the door and a rabbit scatters, tail flashing white.
I picture myself drunk-driving a lawnmower around the orchard, holding a bottle of cider while trying not to crash into apple trees. I imagine filling the place with friends, or running a wildly unsuccessful B&B that I only let hot surfers book. I could never have afforded a place in London with so many possibilities.
It’s daunting buying a house alone, so I have been binge-watching Escape to the Country for tips. I remember to ask whether the garden faces south, if it’s listed, if the village has highspeed internet.
In front of the estate agent, I try to find flaws, banging walls, unsure what sound they should make. But what’s the point? We both know I am going to offer on it. I do. And the owner accepts.
I call friends to tell them about my new life – keeping sheep, herding ducks and baking cakes in my Rayburn. They are pragmatic. ‘Sheep get maggots in their eyes,’ one says. ‘Ducks shit everywhere,’ says another. ‘You can’t cook,’ says a third, ‘and if that’s a wood-fired Rayburn, it’ll take an hour to get going.’
‘Where is it?’ they all ask. I am vague about the details. ‘It isn’t too far from London, though?’ Rob wants to know. I don’t tell him – it is 10 minutes from Land’s End.
It takes me six hours to drive back to my flat. That is a lot of time to think. And panic. Somerset made sense – Bath’s museums, Bristol’s restaurants. I know people in Somerset. There is Babington House.
I try to reassure myself by opening Rightmove to look at my beautiful farmhouse. And that’s when I spot it: there isn’t a single radiator. I am moving to the end of the earth with no central heating.
You can read Katie Glass's column, What Katie did next, every Saturday at 6am on Telegraph.co.uk
