Covid refugees are fleeing the country. Good riddance!

‘A weekly dose of London fakery and I’m ready to re-join the joy of the countryside’

Terrible news, eh? Chilly, gloomy, miserable and pointless

February is upon us and it’s not going down well with the Covid refugees. Reports from leading estate agents have it that the townies are heading back to the city. According to Hamptons, the number of homes bought outside of the capital by Londoners is at its lowest figure since 2014, while Savills says the trend of rocketing rural house prices is over and buyers are flocking back to London.

The townies who fled the capital during Covid are represented by Anna van Praagh, who writes for a London pamphlet called the Evening Standard.

“I’ve never really understood what people do for leisure in the country,” she declared this week. She talked of the refugees returning to London and being re-acquainted with their “open-minded, totally non-judgmental friends”. “Londoners,” she added, “feel and look younger.”

Well, on behalf of all the swivel-eyed loonies, the opinionated fascists and haggard country bumpkins, I’d like to say: “Good riddance, townies!” You evacuated the disease-ridden city with your viewpoints framed by Heartbeat,

Doc Martin and Glastonbury. Actually what you hoped for was a suburban life (parks with bins for dog poo not fields with cowpats, for God’s sake) but what you got was real life. Now I’ll be honest here: I love London. I visit the city once a week, relishing the work I can get done on the train, looking forward to the chance of a decent haircut – without having to book two weeks ahead – eating in fab new restaurants. But a dose of metropolitan fakery and I’m ready to re-join the reality, grit and joy of the countryside. Perhaps my urban nemeses might do something similar: a regular 24 hours amid the mud, rain, occasional clear skies and fun folk of, say, Exmoor.

Then they can rush back to the big smoke, with its pavements and fashion brands, without having screwed up the local economy by buying a house.

And, who knows? It might, without the help of cosmetics, make them look even younger!