Exmoor Files: How I Lost A Husband and Found Rural Bliss

Liz Jones lived the perfect urban life. The immaculate Georgian townhouse in a leafy London square. The glamorous career where she would hob nob with models and movie stars and fashion designers. The much younger novelist husband. But then it all goes horribly wrong. She discovers her husband has been having numerous affairs and realises that her pursuit of perfection has never made her happy and probably never will. And so she decides to start all over again, burying herself alive in the middle of the bleak, unforgiving wilderness that is Exmoor National Park. She buys a wreck of a farmhouse, with an original stable block, 46 acres, an ancient wood and a lake. She rescues a nervous and abused but breathtakingly beautiful racehorse, nursing the dream that she will be able to ride her thoroughbred bareback on the beach, spend her days wafting through flower-filled meadows, harvest her own organic produce and generally live out the rural dream. The reality, of course, is much, much harder.