I've been busy. I do have a job, y'know. It's alright for you, anonymous commenter, whoever you are, sitting there in the The Big City, eating fucking Beluga caviar and being gently felched by subservient minions. Us country folk have to work for a living, yeah?

Plus, I haven't got the internet at home yet. Oh, and the usual disclaimer: I couldn't be arsed to update. That'll happen a lot. Like it or lump it, matey.

It's nearly here. The Big Day. Saturday. The day I bid adieu to city dwelling and bonjour to country living. I intend to set myself up in a country pile and wile away the days gardening, learning to play the harpsichord, battling ants and occasionally being drawn into nefarious plots that invariably entail me murdering someone. I am Tom Ripley.

the town I'm moving to, is reasonably well known, for a number of reasons: it's quite a pretty town; it's close to Brighton; it's a stage along the South Downs Way.

Oh, and there's this.

Lovely.

and I'll be a countryside-dweller (pretty much). The part of the countryside I'm moving to is a town called Lewes in the South Downs of England, an area of rolling grassland laid upon chalkbed, like a great big bumpy bowling green. At the moment I'm commuting down from London every day, and as the train leaves Wivelsfield I catch sight of the pale green wall of the distant South Downs, rising sharply over verdant cow-pocked plains. (Readers of my other blog, Off Message, may recognise this description, or at least a version of it. Hey, I liked it over there, so why not use it over here. Sue me.) But come next weekend, I'll be a resident.

Quite what form this blog will take (if I even bother to update it), I have no idea. One might reasonably assume it would be a chronicle of what it's like to move to the country, consisting of amusing and sometimes heartwarming tales of country life and living. Knowing me, however, it'll more likely be an outpouring of unfocused invective and meandering posts with little or no point. A bit like Off Message then. But written in the countryside instead of the city.

Well, to a town in the country, which is closer to the country than I've ever lived before, having only lived in various parts of cities, chiefly London. Admittedly I have lived in the south London suburbs for large parts of my life, which in the grand scheme of things could be seen as being reasonably close to the country, if by the country you mean a preponderance of grass and trees and cows and shit (literally). But the south London suburbs are still effectively 'the city'.

Fantastic. First post in this new blog and I'm already undermining its legitimacy.