Country Living: Our Man in Arundel

Lovely weather here today - and, I imagine, across most of the UK. It was so good that I did some work in the garden this afternoon.

Not gardening. Heavens, no. I sat and checked my email.

Fortunately my garden was planted by the previous owner in a style that looks good but needs very little maintenance. I prune a bit, I add the occasional plant, I remove dead bits and I bask in undeserved praise.

Joking apart, I did a little bit of garden tidying. The garden came complete with a few plants in pots - including a smallish conifer. I'd hoped it would end up being a convenient Christmas tree but the top part died - followed by the rest of it. So I chopped it up into small pieces and left it out for the dustmen. (Well, what's a chap to do when he doesn't have a car? There's no garden refuse recycling around here). Next came destruction of the pot: a rotting half-barrel with metal hoops that had fallen to the ground. Pretty easy to break up... but so many tiny creatures living there. Giant armoured woodlice, striped slugs, strange hopping things and something that looked half-worm, half... Oh dear. Just half-worm. Hope it's not lost anything important.

And finally, at around five o'clock, I caught a train to look at some cars. (Note to motor traders: please sell more cars near railway stations. It makes life so much easier if you don't have a car). Most attractive-looking was Mercedes with 165,000 miles on the clock. Rather too run-in for me. Most attractively-priced was ancient Nissan for £325. "Drives well". Tempted. Favourite notice on a car was "Former owner was a Reverend". Unfortunately not a Reverend whose car was celestially protected from dents. Some people are footloose and fancy-free. Me, I'm footsore and car-free.