Tales of the Country: London still doesn't thrill me

Whizzing through some old e-mails the other day, I came across one from my colleague Miles Kington, who was among those who kindly counselled me when I first wrote about our agonies over whether to leave London for the country.

In his inimitably witty way, Miles – who long ago forsook Notting Hill for the pleasures of the West Country – cited the case of another national-newspaper journalist, who chronicled his London-vs-country indecision in a series of articles with roughly the following themes: the hell of living in London. Why I must get out of London. How I have finally made the break. Ah – the country at last! Why I still miss London. The hell of living in a wood with five billion mosquitoes. Move to the country, and the world comes to stay. Why I have to get back to London. Ah, London – how I missed you! The hell of the country. Why I sometimes miss the country. Twickenham – it's just like the country, really.

In this evolutionary process, we are still at the stage of loving life in the Welsh Marches and feeling that we made the right decision. Which, I hope, is the mindset we keep. It's true that when you move to the country, the world comes to stay, but the world, on the whole, is still welcome. And in the annoying-insect department, we're much better off than Miles's friend: what are a million flies next to five billion mosquitoes?

Nor has London started tugging on our heartstrings. We were there at the weekend for a brilliant 40th-birthday bash, and it was wonderful to see our friends at the party and, the next day, to have a big sunny picnic in Highgate Wood, one of the natural glories of north London. I even quite enjoyed queuing for 45 minutes at the Oshobasho vegetarian café, just for a round of cappuccinos. It used to get my goat terribly, when I lived in the area, that nobody at the otherwise excellent Oshobasho had the sense to open a tea-and-coffee hatch. But it didn't seem to matter on Sunday. And it was surprisingly pleasant to be reunited with the expensive bric-a-brac shops of Muswell Hill, where the bric comes from Afghanistan and the brac from Morocco, with only a 1,000 per cent mark-up if you're lucky enough to find a bargain.

Yet, still, we returned to Herefordshire with a hop and a skip. It's a marvellous time of year to be living here, with lambs gambolling around the neighbouring fields, blissfully unaware of their fate, and hosts of daffodils to make Wordsworth weep. Moreover, the dramatic outburst of spring is confirmation that we have survived the winter. It has not been nearly as grim as we feared, either... which observation almost guarantees us more blizzards and power cuts before March is out.

Pains, trains and automobiles, or, the grass is always greener

As we zoomed southward on the M40 on Saturday, several advertising hoardings flashed by us, proclaiming the convenience of the train. Truly, advertising is a precarious business. Had we been stewing in a five-mile tailback, those hoardings would have packed a devastating punch. "Next time we're getting the bloody train," I would have grumbled. "We can walk about, go to the loo, visit the buffet car, and it's a damn sight quicker." But as it was, on what for once was a free-flowing motorway, we were more than happy to be in the Volvo.

It seems a bit sneaky of the train companies, actually, to advertise their wares along the sides of motorways. Perhaps the car manufacturers should strike back, with posters of comfy saloons zipping along empty roads, strategically located at all points trackside where signal failure is rife (just north of Oxford would, in my unhappy experience, be a good place to start). Not to mention the stretches where animals are inclined to wander on to the line.

The truth of the matter, alas, is that there is no telling, at the start of a journey from the sticks to the city, or for that matter from the city to the sticks, whether car or train will be the more miserable option.

Cut from a different cloth

There number among my friends two men of the cloth. One is an old university buddy, now a chaplain in the British army, in the Gulf, ministering for all he is worth. I'm sure he won't mind me sharing with you – if only as a spot of light relief in these dark days – a description of one of his party pieces at university, c1983.

There really is no delicate way to evoke the spectacle – spectacle being an appropriate word, as what he liked to do, mainly to entertain fellow members of the university cricket team, was to place a pair of sunglasses over his genitalia. You really had to be there, although you're doubtless glad you weren't. Somehow, the sunglasses always stayed in place, making his tackle look like a grotesquely misshapen face. Since we were on a hard-drinking cricket tour of Somerset when his party piece was unveiled, it was named the Minehead Muppet. And we in the cricket team often encouraged him to get it out, either because we were drunk, or because we had faint homoerotic tendencies – or perhaps a little of both.

Anyway, I don't know when the Minehead Muppet last saw the light of day – not for the greater part of 20 years, is my fervent hope – but my friend, without needing to flash his private parts, is still the life and soul of a party. Which is also true of the other clergyman I know, who is a much newer friend and a generation older than me, making him a perfect illustration of how, in the country, one befriends people of all ages and from all walks of life in a way that doesn't happen – or, at any rate, didn't happen to me – in the city.

I feel blessed to have him as a friend, not least because of his prowess with an anecdote. Over lunch at his home, near Leominster, the other day, he told us a wonderful story – which he permitted me to share with you – about his early career as a curate in the lovely Georgian town of Pershore, Worcestershire. Summoned one day to the handsome home of a very grand old lady, he was appalled to find, as he wheeled his bicycle up her path, a fierce Alsatian blocking his way. The dog was barking at him with what seemed like intent, and he was debating whether to back off or risk life and limb by intrepidly ploughing on, when an upstairs window opened and the grand old lady looked out.

"Kick his balls," she commanded. My friend looked at her, then eyed the dog.

"They're at the back," she added.

Reluctantly, he shaped up to do as he had been bidden. "No," she called. "His balls. They're at the back of the lawn."

A clergy with incidents such as that to remember, and a clergy with indecent student capers to forget, is, I reckon, a clergy in pretty good shape.