The New Normal

This is our fifth week in Walberswick. Herself has begun her course, I've been to Ireland, and now normal life can resume.

When we were in London, thinking about this move, we said to ourselves, 'How different could our lives possibly be? We spend all day at our desks and all evening on the sofa (if we're not out with friends) and we'll have desks and a sofa in Walberswick.'

And it's true, of course. We don't have any friends here in the village, so our weekday evenings are our own. I spent yesterday doing jobs and trying to get my head back into my book. It's lovely being at my own desk, rather than somebody else's, by the way. Then at 5pm I took myself off for a walk, and that's where the normality ended, briefly. My hour-long walk took in marsh and river and sea and cows and sheep and blackberries and the setting sun. Don't get that in central London. Then I fed the dog and started making supper. Back to normal.

But this is a normal with knobs on. Neither of us is currently bringing in any income, we have French tenants for that. Merci bien. I'm not slogging off to a box to make money for somebody else. Herself is not sitting in the attic trying to sell her good ideas to moronic twentysomethings with too much power and not enough talent. I am writing my book and she is learning to be a teacher. The dog is still the dog. But this life, here in Walberswick, is the new normal – and it's great.