Just after I’d weaned myself off him, it turns out Foxy is properly single

‘I had weaned myself off the idea of him after one too many weird Zoom calls in which he tried to get me to take my top off but I decided to reserve judgement until I had seen him in the flesh’ – by Christine Manby

(Tom Ford )

After last week’s disaster when I accidentally joined my new neighbours for their bedtime sing-a-along through the bathroom wall, the only thing I could do was leave town. In the immediate aftermath of my tuneful faux pas, I spent a sleepless night looking up local properties on Rightmove, trying to work out how much I might get for my place, if London houses with a garden just big enough for a bin were selling at all post-Pandemic. How low would I have to go for a quick sale that would get me out of Dodge before I bumped into one of the new neighbours in the street? And where would I move to?  Was the Pembrokeshire coast far enough away to guarantee I would never, ever bump into the people next door? Probably not. The beaches of west Wales will be prime staycation territory this year.

But then, would the neighbours even know who I was if they did bump into me? We hadn’t actually introduced ourselves yet. Perhaps when we did meet face to face I could pretend I had a twin sister who had been staying over on the night of the sing-a-long?

“Yeah, my sister Mary, she’s a funny one…”

Or I could tell them about the ghost that lives between the walls of our two houses? Yes, they must have heard the ghost of the old lady who appeared in the chorus of the first ever London performance of The Mikado. I’ve often heard her singing mournful snatches of “The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze” as she hovers in the cavity wall… They’d definitely go for that, I thought. These are the sort of solutions that seem quite sensible in the wee small hours.

Next morning, dizzy from lack of sleep, I called Liz, who had a much more elegant idea. “Why don’t you come and stay with us over the Bank Holiday weekend?”

I didn’t need to be asked twice. I took a day’s leave, loaded my car and headed off for Herefordshire at dawn on the Friday morning. Thank goodness it was still momentarily legal to leave the postcode.

It was wonderful to see Liz again after so long. Since both of us were double-jabbed, we risked an awkward hug. Her dog Jimmy was less wary and immediately planted his muddy paws and nose in my crotch. My new ecru jeans suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea and I’d been so excited to put them on in a nod to the actual season after weeks and weeks of freezing rain.

Over coffee, Liz told me that we had been invited to her neighbour The Foxy Farmer’s for the evening.

“He’s very excited to see you,” she said.

Evidently, the veterinary nurse who had been Foxy’s on-and-off amour during lockdown had transferred her affections to an ex-SAS soldier (ten a penny in the Shire), who owned a firm providing security for Saudi princesses on shopping trips. Foxy couldn’t compete with the possibility of after-hours access to Bicester Discount Village.

So Foxy was properly single. I had weaned myself off the idea of him after one too many weird Zoom calls in which he tried to get me to take my top off but I decided to reserve judgement until I had seen him in the flesh again. Then I started worrying about how much make-up I would have to put on in order to look anything like I did with a Zoom filter.

The Foxy Farmer had been busy during lockdown. I knew that during lockdown one he’d built a barbecue. During this latest lockdown, he’d expanded his outdoor cooking facilities to include a pizza oven. Together, the BBQ and pizza oven complex looked big enough to require planning permission. He’d been thinking about adding a fire pit big enough to take a whole pig on a spit. Liz’s husband Fred was enthusiastic. He had been making plans to turn the derelict barn at the back of their house into a home gym and sauna complex. An outdoor kitchen would make his world complete.

“It’ll be like Soho Farmhouse,” I suggested to Liz.

“It’ll be half-finished and used as a place to store the sit-on mower for the next five years,” Liz whispered to me.

“We’re getting a new sit-on mower,” said Fred, as if on cue.

“Which marque?” Foxy Farmer asked.

“So?  What do you think?’ Liz whispered to me as the men poked about in the pizza oven which was putting out an alarming amount of black smoke. “Still fancy him?”

I didn’t think so. Foxy seemed considerably more inspired by garden maintenance than he had been by me in the paw-printed ecru jeans I had chosen to flatter my bottom.

I walked to the front of Foxy’s house to get a phone signal. I was halfway back up the muddy farm track to Liz’s before 43 messages came through. Most were from the street WhatsApp group. Something had kicked off a 15-way conversation and for once it wasn’t people who put their rubbish out too early.

“Does anyone know someone who can fit sound-proofing,” the new people next door had asked.

I felt slightly ill as I scrolled through the responses, which included one from Jacqui, who has the house on the other side of mine.

“Victorian houses like ours are terrible for noise. The walls are so thin you can even hear snoring.”

Was she talking about my snoring? I blushed furiously, even though no one could see me. I was going to have to move to a barn in the middle of a field.

There were three more messages, all from my colleague George.

“Drinking in your neck of the wood tonight. Come and join us.”

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“At The Ship and Shovel. Guess who’s here? Your handsome postman! I told him I’d get you to come out.”

“Where are you?”

“In Hereford,” I texted back.

George called me back on WhatsApp video instantly. He was hammered. He moved his phone around to show me the other people at his table, including Glenn. Glenn blew me a kiss. I was so discombobulated, I dropped my phone in a cow-pat. It wasn’t a dry one.