Two days before leaving this country for Italy – where, defeated by southern British house prices, I planned to fight for a long-term visa and buy a home – I finally found the exact flat I’d been dreaming of, here in the UK. True, it wasn’t in East Anglia, where I grew up and most of my family still lives, but Shropshire, a county which intrigued me and which emerged over time as my second choice. Green, landlocked, with endless castles, hills and valleys, Shropshire is about as remote from the capital as you can get. It has Ludlow and Shrewsbury, medieval towns with rivers, courtyards, timbered buildings and a pleasing Shakespearean ring to their names. Nearby is Wales which, since two epic holidays in my youth, has been a kind of Holy Land for me. What’s not to embrace?
Every time I told them of this universal foreign custom, the line went silent
Finding this place felt fated.
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