Ana looks blank at the word Aga, but I am looking down at the email from Virginie Lacoste with renewed concern, having taken in what the stone-cold French superfox is actually on about.

Why, of all the small market towns in the world in which to purchase a modest, four-million-pound, country pile, does the ‘French lezzer’, as I am afraid Mirabel calls Virginie, have to choose mine?

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]

Lovely to hear from you, and great news about Bonpoint!

As to your question – let me think… Godminster is just a little bit dull. For us, the big draw was Acland’s, which is great, much better than the sink comp in Larmouth, but you’ll be living mainly in London and using the Lycée, I presume, for the twins and Guy; schools won’t be such an issue for you. You French have NO idea how lucky you are, with your education system. So it depends whether the West Country is your thing or not. Godminster’s got a nice market on Saturdays, but the other shops are bog-standard and the Farmers’ Market in Notting Hill Gate on Saturday morning has just as good suppliers, with the added bonus that it’s in London, not two and half hours away from anywhere.

The houses, especially the manor houses and small country estates, are jolly pricey, because it’s near the Heritage or Jurassic Coast, etc., totally romantic and unspoilt, Dorset is the new Gloucestershire, not that price will put you off.

To be honest, lovely though it would be of course to have you and Mathieu and the children so close, I’m not convinced that Godminster’s really what you’re looking for. But you should come and have a look and see for yourself.

Do let me know if there’s any more I can do, and send my love to Capucine, Clementine, Guy and of course Mathieu.

Mimi

Amusing to see that Virginie’s radar for chic hasn’t deserted her, I think, as I press send on this highly misleading review of our local town. You wouldn’t know it from my email, but Godminster is in fact a haven for all sorts of successful creatives who seem determined to reinvent English country-house living for the modern, wireless, organic, anti-supermarket age – think the Vogue shoot of Madonna in Cecil Beaton’s old house, all directional tweeds, ironic pearls, ponies, peonies, croquet and cream tea served on the lawn in bone-china cups.

Also, why would I convey to Virginie the deep, bone-marrow joy of performing small physical tasks, like shelling peas or pegging out washing or kneading dough, joys I had no knowledge of before I fetched up in Home Farm?

When I make scones, or chop, or flap out sheets in the sweet, salt-washed breeze, it’s as if I am recalling the collective muscle memory of all the housewives before me, for hundreds of years, who have done the same in this dear and ancient spot.

And I don’t want la Virginie here, in her Capri pants and little cardigans and silky swinging curtain of blonde hair ruining it all.