Rebecca is an example of how not to manage men. The rules of the game never change, it requires subtlety.

They may turn out to be a great disappointment, or perhaps they may be full of enchanting surprises.

It seemed sensible to move to a market town where I could walk everywhere.

People try much less hard to make a marriage work than they used to fifty years ago. Divorce is easier.

Unimaginative people are spared quite a lot. They're often much happier, because they don't go through all the variety of conceptions of the person they love.

That image of the countryside being a threatening place still exists. People continue to resist the challenge of learning about aspects of life they don't understand.

My father was a soldier and my mother was a great mover. She once counted up how many places she had lived in during the first 25 years of her marriage and it came to 20.