Country mouse takes the hotseat

I am a radio listener in the morning, so when I found myself doing the rounds of breakfast television on the day that the issue edited by The Prince of Wales came out, I wasn't sure what to expect. At ITV Studios, they took one look at me and rushed me to makeup, where a kind lady did her best with my sallow complexion. Another layer was added at the next interview and so, by the time the Sky make-up artists had finished with me, I had three layers of blusher and of other substances I know not what.

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My face and cheeks were beaming like burnished tangerines, old scars had been airbrushed into history and I looked a decade younger. The only problem was that, every time I spoke, I felt as if my face was going to fracture into a million pieces.

At the weekend, I drove a pig to Cardiff. My eldest son and his university housemates greeted the arrival of the carcass, an off-cut of Mrs Country Mouse's cheese business, with the sort of glee a toddler has for Father Christmas. If nothing else, university has taught them to appreciate the cost of food.

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