The more things change…

…the more they change.

I’ve swapped an enviable riverside flat, in the most beautiful part of London (I think) for a small clapboard cottage in a hamlet in East Sussex (equally beautiful I also like to think).

Not to mention saying goodbye to the closest-knit community of neighbours I’ve lived amongst, and some very good friends I hope distance will make no difference to. You know who you are.

So, I’ve gone from; next door to a riverside pub (and three doors away from the next one on the other side – although that one was a bit rubbish), a cosy gourmet restaurant across the way, and the local convenience store five minutes down the road to…

A church. 14 houses. A pretty village green. Six miles to the nearest shop (which is also the closest supermarket). And no pub - not in this village, and not in the next one either.

Some of my friends seem to find this a bit shocking.

But did I mention being woken by the hooting of owls, instead of the rattling of trains?

Gentle sunshine dappling through the trees around the church?

The pale turquoise river that flows sometimes fast, sometimes slow, through the wide, flat valley towards the sea?

Have I mentioned them?

I think I have now.