Several years ago, a series of windy nights kept the bedroom door banging open and shut. Maria, ever resourceful, grabbed a heavy volume of the work of Oscar Wilde and used it as a doorstop, where it remains to this day. We both think Wilde would have approved. It was either that or a biography of Winston Churchill. The door hasn’t budged an inch.

People keep asking me why we moved from Bedlam Farm and there are a number of reasons. One of them is that given the changes in publishing, we could no longer afford to live there, although we did not imagine owning two farms for more than a year. Secondly, we wanted to buy and live in our own place together, and that has turned out to be a good and prescient decision. We loved Bedlam Farm, but we love our new home and our life there. One reader said she was disappointed that I was moving, but life goes on, she said philosophically. Yes. And on and on.