It is sunny today again. Summer is holding on by her fingertips. She is not one to give up.

Yesterday, I played tennis with a fun group of women at the Hurlingham Club. One of them has a job buying and customising Rolex watches in Mayfair. Her life is a far cry from mine! These days if I am at the Old Rectory, I am covered in dirt after hitting the garden or engaging in other practical pursuits.

Last weekend, the cricket club had the last match of the season. The one job the decorator didn’t have time to do when he recently came and repainted the windows, was to paint the floor of the pool house. It still had remnants of the previous owners on display, chewing gum stuck to floor, together with a ‘very attractive’ Domino’s pizza carton that had merged with it.

When Geoff and I set to work in the garden when we first moved in, and the builders moved out, we unearthed multiple balls (rugby, tennis and cricket); empty bottles of soft drinks, vodka and beer; a diving board that had obviously snapped off; crockery and cutlery; a rotting mattress up a tree; garden utensils; clothing and a few unmentionables. It was a purge. It was filthy work. But it had to be done. The garden had to be tamed.

So last weekend, I donned old clothes and sanded the floor to the pool house, relishing removing the debris that had melded with the floor. So satisfying! Then I set about giving it the first coat of paint, the undercoat. Just as I was struggling with the roller, a cricketer appeared to collect a ball hit over our boundary. He was amused to find me on my hands and knees and not reclining by the pool. He said that I had not set up the roller properly. He obliged and sorted it. Then he found the cricket ball and returned back to play. That is life in the country.

It is a far cry from the life that most women live if they are residents of the Royal Borough of Chelsea and Kensington. It was a far cry from the life I lived when I was a resident.

Tonight, I am going for dinner with my tennis friends and then to see Bridget Jones -the latest film after many years – based on the third book in the series. It will be a chance to get dressed up and drink some champers.