Country Loving [Paperback]

‘It’s lovely. It’s delightful. It’s funny and observant and truthful... I really, really liked it’ (Philip Pullman )

‘She writes wonderfully well. Her style is restrained and supremely confident , pruned of unnecessary detail and sparkling with mordant wit.... Pacy and witty, Highmore’s take on the country comedy is as fresh, crisp and delicious as a new organic carrot. An extremely promising debut’ (Express )

‘I have read COUNTRY LOVING and enjoyed it. I like her totally unsentimental angle on country living, and the eccentric and quirky characters... It will do well’ (Rosamunde Pilcher )

‘Julie Highmore’s warm-hearted novel COUNTRY LOVING, about moving to the country, revels in the hazards of the rural life as well as its seductive attractions’ (Publishing News )

‘Funny, original and dazzlingly assured. I adored everything about this excellent book’ (Jill Mansell )

‘So enjoyable... It’s a lovely read’ (Catherine Alliott )

'I like her totally unsentimental angle on country living, and the eccentric and quirky characters. It will do well’

'It's lovely. It's delightful. It's funny and observant and truthful'

'[Highmore's] style is restrained and supremely confident, pruned of unnecessary detail and sparkling with mordant wit'

'Funny, original and dazzlingly assured. I adored everything about this excellent book'

‘It's lovely. It's delightful. It's funny and observant and truthful... I really, really liked it'

‘Funny, original and dazzlingly assured. I adored everything about this excellent book'

‘So enjoyable... It's a lovely read'

Life slows down alarmingly from the moment Ruby Grant and Oliver move into Troy Cottage. Free at last from her two grown-up yet persistently dependent children, Ruby plans to start writing her novel – until her daughter, Poppy, turns up with boyfriend and dog in tow, announces she’s pregnant and moves into Ruby’s office. Then Josh needs somewhere to do his washing, and her father wants to stay...

Despite this, Ruby finds village life surprisingly seductive, especially when she meets Hamish, the handsome journalist who is eager to help with her investigations for the parish magazine. There’s surely no harm in a little crush – but can Ruby avoid the hazards of country loving?

Julie Highmore was born in Surrey. She has worked as a reader for OUP Children's Books, copy-edited academic work and taught English. She lives in Oxfordshire and has three independent grown-up children. This is her first novel.

Chapter One

‘Oh yes, and a nice bottle of wine,’ I tell Oliver.
‘Right,’ he says, jotting it down. ‘OK, that’s pitta bread, humous, Earl Grey, Guardian, olives and a bottle of wine. Australian Cabernet?’
‘Definitely.’
He folds the list and tucks it in his shirt pocket. ‘Ready?’
Our first Upper Muckhill outing. Very exciting.
‘Settled in to old Bert’s place then?’ asks a petite, grey-haired passer-by, who looks as though she might weigh less than her two bags of food. She stops and puts her shopping down. ‘Jean,’ she says with several puffs and a quick nod of the head. ‘Jean Crowbar.’ (Or something.)
Friendly locals, hooray. ‘I’m Ruby Grant,’ I tell her with a big smile. She nods and puffs again and I can’t help thinking she’d be better of without that cable-knit cardigan on such a day. ‘And this is Oliver Jeff–’
‘Jeffries,’ she says. ‘Yes, I know. Second husband. Architect. You work from home.’
Oliver’s jaw drops. ‘And my shoe size?’
She looks down at his feet. ‘Meg – that’s Ted’s wife – thought you’d be a ten or eleven. Only we was sorting through Bert’s things, God rest his soul, and wondered if you could make use of his shoes. Big like you, he was.’
Oliver stares wide-eyed at the woman and I hook my arm through his. ‘We’d better get to the shop,’ I say, steering us away. ‘Nice meeting you, Jean.’
‘Ted’s out of lard, if you was wanting any,’ she calls out. ‘Had a bit of a run on it, he says.’
‘Right.’
‘Got a lovely bit of tongue in today though.’
‘Oh, good.’
We’re outside the shop and Oliver shakes the hand that’s been thrust at him. ‘Veronica Weatherall, parish councillor,’ announces its owner – late-fifties, rigid blonde hair, all done up in Tory blue – ‘You must be Oliver.’
She turns to me. ‘And Ruby, I believe. I hear you’ve got two grown-up children. You barely look old enough, my dear.’ For some reason it doesn’t feel like a compliment. ‘Joshua and Polly, isn’t it?’
‘It’s Poppy, actually.’
‘Mm, unusual name. And what do they do, your children?’
Well mostly they mind their own business I’m thinking, as I scratch around for a better word than ‘unemployed’.
‘They’re both in the leisure industry,’ chips in Oliver.
‘Ah yes, very worthwhile. We’re hoping to get a little sports centre going in the infants’ school annexe. Volleyball for the seventy plus, that sort of thing.’ She opens a large clip-top handbag and pulls out a spiral notepad. ‘While I’ve got you here, can I put you both down for bus-shelter litter duty? You’ll find we all tend to muck in in Muckhill.’ She unscrews her fountain pen top and looks up at our horrified faces. ‘Shall we say every other Tuesday?’
In the dark and chilly village shop, Oliver and I try not to quietly weep. After scouring the shelves in vain we eventually take a bottle of Liebfraumilch, two cod-in-butter-sauces and a tabloid to the till, where Ted introduces himself but we feel we needn’t bother.
‘Got yourselves a bargain there,’ he says, huge bushy eyebrows bobbing up and down below a completely bald head. It’s like all his hair one day decided to relocate. We look quizzically at our purchases. ‘Old Bert Roberts’ place,’ he adds.
‘Ah right, Troy Cottage,’ I say with what I hope isn’t too smug an expression. It certainly was a good price. We are, however, beginning to find out why.
‘Wanted to buy it myself but what with business being a bit slow...’ he says as he scans our items.
I look around the shop and wonder why that could be.
‘That’s eight pound forty-three, if you please.’
‘You what?’ exclaims Oliver, taking the items back out of their carrier bag. ‘Look, two tiny portions of endangered fish, a bottle of undrinkable plonk and a fascist rag. Let’s face it, Ted, you should be paying us.’
Ted, momentarily stunned, then bursts into a hearty laugh. ‘Bit of a wit, are we?’
Back home, after Oliver and I have stoically worked our way through dinner, I take my new journal upstairs and sit on the bed, pen in mouth, first snow-white empty page propped on my thighs.
Nice thing about the village, I write, is average age roughly sixty-eight. So much better than living next to second-year university students who look as though someone should still be crossing them over the road, and who make you feel old and boring when you ask them to clear front garden rubbish due to rat sighting. I’m guessing no one in Upper Muckhill will play hip hop till the police hammer on their door, either.