From City Boy to Organic Vegetable Growing Country Bumpkin

When I was having to pack an overnight bag for the journey into the West End on the Northern line from Barnet, we knew it was time to move on. The arrival of the little fellah the year before sort of started the ball rolling, so we packed up and shipped out to a 3 bedroom cottage deep in the Countryside where the air is cleaner and the grass is always greener, right?

It was idyllic for all of ten minutes...

Always scout the area where you intend to buy. The village may be lovely but if there's one of many garden centres on the outskirts and it's popular, traffic's gotta get there somehow. Nothing like a Sunday morning in the garden of your picture postcard cottage, sun shining, birds singing, but drowned out by a tailback longer than the M25, Monday mornings, all vying for a space in the car park that accommodates six. After ten minutes of honking and hollering, some will park on your verge, lock up and walk the 100 yards or so. Cheers mate.

City folk, should not enter a small, tight knit community wearing barbour, wellies and a deerstalker, expecting home made apple pie and gardening tips to be bestowed upon them while being carried shoulder high through the village by an adoring throng, grateful that the Messiah has come to show them the error of their ways. Quote; This huntin', shootin', fishin', malarkey stops today, do you hear? This is a way of being carried shoulder high... to the nearest ravine.

When I moved to London from Liverpool, it took about 18 months before my flat neighbour said good morning, only because I was slumped on the doorstep after an all night bender having lost my key. Didn't take as long here, mainly because, partner, exploited our boy ruthlessly.

Now, mother and toddler groups are the mother of social networking in the Country. Partner had four separate mornings and three afternoons in outlying villages in the can before you could say, Action. The logistics were carried out with Military precision, in keeping with RAF bomber command situated a couple of miles away. Lincolnshire's pretty flat, see. Low flight training.

So endeth the first lesson. It got better.

Actor, sometimes writer, on moving to the Countryside, is in a unique position to review and endorse organic products, trying them on his own garden first, researching the information thoroughly. For advice visit, [http://www.countrycount.net/]