I Shut the Laptop, Walked Into the Woods and This Happened...
This is no ordinary English town. Some of the richest folk on earth buy homes here; I recognised several this week. You see hundreds of wage-slaves too, mostly very small, lightweight types. I breakfast at seven with online news and email bingo, then shut the laptop and walk the dogs that are my reason for being here. The house is a cyborg: half thatched-roof cottage and half Starship Enterprise . A vast country estate is yards away, near the stud farm where retired racehorses live in luxury. Next door is a Count Dracula-scale mansion owned by a gangster from the middle east. Yesterday as we passed his iron gates a wild hare leaped from the shrubbery, giant ears erect, and roared off like a rocket. The dogs went skittering after him but he spun them in circles until suddenly a magnificent roe deer sprang from the trees, bounding towards the north. The hare went left, the deer went right -taking a dog each- and in 20 seconds all four of them vanished. I laughed and sat down on the g...
