I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Cassandra, and I am very bad at living in the country, even though I don't even live in the 'proper' country, or even try very hard to be good at it.
Many many years ago, in a strange wholesome flush of new motherhood, when you find yourself obsessing (possibly through lack of sleep) about all the things you are doing wrong and all the terrible fates that might befall your moppet, because of course no one has ever had a baby before you or thought of these dreadful things that might happen, it struck me that pushing my pink cheeked darling around the dreadful urban streets in her pram meant she was at the exact height of the car exhausts, and could be breathing in all sorts of dreadful things! I mean, what price Baby Organix (I said it was a long time ago, long before shiny little Ella's Kitchen pouches were even a twinkle in Ella's daddy's eye), when each time we left the house she was enveloped in carcinogens? Why did I bother giving up smoking when essentially I was forcing her to suck on exhaust pipes?
I would fretfully check her for pallor and wanness and rickets and any general signs of 'inner city poor child-ness', convinced that her persistently rosy cheeks and chubby limbs were masking a terrible case of the consumption and she would have to go to the seaside or the mountains to become well and strong again (my grasp of medical science was hazy and mostly gleaned from Victorian novels and the Chalet School series. You may be thinking at this point that I am well named).
It was around then that my dear husband, (a man now known as the Dream Crusher, or the DC for his habit of proffering a dream towards me, all shiny and fluffy and wrapped in Cath Kidston clouds, before crushing it brutally before my very eyes in his nasty, sensible hobnailed boots), tricked me so cunningly.
He did not share my love of the filthy urban streets, with their shops and cafes and delis and offies and many other very lovely places to spend money we didn't have on tat we didn't need. He yearned for a garden and open spaces and quiet and all manner of other bizarre things, so one day, as I anxiously poked the baby again, demanding 'D'you think she's looking a bit urchiny?', he suggested we move to the country.
To the country, where the fresh country air would blow the cobwebs of urchin from the poor baby, where she would become fat and jolly on good country milk, and butter, and could frolic unfettered and free through the fields and woods, having adventures and dashing the dastardly plans of beastly criminal smuggler sorts (my knowledge of the country being exclusively based upon the excellent books of Enid Blyton).
Apple cheeked farmers wives would call to us merrily as we skipped along, possibly crying 'God bless you m'lady' (I'm unsure where the title was to come from). I must confess I did not entirely rule out a pony and trap in these visions. But there was one word in particular that swung it for me- Aga!
As the baby frolicked and thwarted crims, I should be at home, swathed in yards and yards of fucking adorable floral prints, pulling trays of fresh scones and pound cakes from my Aga, hearty stews simmering atop it, and all would wonder at my glorious domesticity and admire how shiny my hair was.
I toyed with doing embroidery in the evenings instead of watching Eastenders. I considered keeping goats, and dreamt up clever, witty, yet shoutable names for black Labs, who would be as shiny as my wholesome shiny country hair, which I would toss back from my glowingly healthy face when the DC returned each night to consume the lovingly simmered stews and admire my exquisite needlepoint and the wittily named Lab brought his slippers, in a moment of splendid ironic kitsch.
So, this Vision burning strong in my breast (there was an awful lot more trust me, including jovial country grocers in striped aprons, and apple picking, and a frightening amount of arts and crafts-at one point a piano loomed into the Vision, around which we would sing on cold winter nights), we moved. Shortly afterwards, they opened a Waitrose 10 minutes walk from our old flat. I still haven't got an Aga. And fucking nothing has gone according to the Vision.
