Living in the country, I am fighting the urge to become a recluse. I think it's a losing battle.

My birthday came and went with a minimum of fuss. The boyfriend didn’t get me the Siamese kitten I was hoping for, just a sensible shirt. He’ll be sorry. I shall buy my own kitten and make it a cosy bed out of clothes I don’t want. Like sensible shirts. I was going to have a bit of a “do” but in the end the thought of all the visitors filled me with dread. It’s bad enough being 49 without a load of overdressed people from London turning up on your doorstep clutching bottles of cheap white wine.

Living in the country, I am fighting the urge to become a recluse. I think it’s a losing battle. I have an embarrassing seven bedrooms here - perfect, you might think, for house parties. That's certainly what I imagined I'd be doing when I bought the place. What larks there would be! Gay boys sniffing drugs and swapping beds in the night, darling children running up and down corridors, their laughter filling the air, raucous Sunday lunches that went on long into the night . . . But no. I tried all that in the first few months and found that even my dearest friends got on my nerves.

It was an endless round of smiling, talking, listening, shopping, cooking and bed changing. And while some guests can be enchanting company for a few hours, I had no desire to see them again in the morning, all bed-breath and flat hair, demanding paracetamol and boiled eggs done just "so". It rather put me off, so I let the stream of visitors dwindle to a trickle and then the occasional, unwelcome droplet. Local friends, who don't need a bed for the night, are tolerated. Eating disorders welcome. Those who want a warm smile from me when I open the door will greet me with the words: "I'm not stopping long."

It's probably a measure of my social dysfunction that I get immense pleasure from inspecting my unoccupied bedrooms several times a day. All the linen is crisp and white. There are fresh flowers on the windowsill and hand-sewn sachets of lavender in the empty drawers. They are all ready for . . . well, nobody, preferably. Imaginary occupants are the only sort I can cope with these days.

But I have discovered the perfect exception to the rule. Lesbians. They make ideal house guests. No mess, short grunts instead of conversation, and they spend most of their time outside chopping wood and smoking pipes. Helga and Bertha descended on me (and, I dare say, each other) this week, and I was delighted. With just the merest hint from me about what needed doing, they proved most industrious. They spent the first day sorting out my junk, putting everything in boxes, and then heaving them up into the loft. Apart from one near scrap over who had the Stanley knife, I was blissfully undisturbed on my sunbed among the foxgloves.

That evening they were perfectly content with a hunk of rustic bread and a couple of bottles of stout. They slept in their dungarees and didn't bother with a bath, thus saving the expense of hot water and towels. In the morning they mistook my wild birdseed for muesli, and by the time I emerged they had swept out the barn, chopped the logs, cleaned the windows and were loading up their jeep ready to depart. (Apparently there was a sale on at Halfords.) If they hadn't let themselves down by using Swarfega in my butcher's sink, I couldn't have faulted them.

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