My husband was eating sandwiches in an anteroom when our first child was born. I can’t remember where he was for the second – not far off, but definitely elsewhere.

For the third, he was snoozing peacefully in an easy chair in another part of the hospital entirely. I’ve no doubt he would have been there beside me, holding my hand and counting me through all that embarrassing panting, if I’d asked him, but I think there’s a lot to be said for trying to maintain at least a smidgen of mystery in this mucky life. Which is why I’ve never understood people leaving the door open when they’re on the lavatory. Some basic human rituals are better dispensed with in front of as few witnesses as possible.

That includes breakfast. I can’t bear people there, especially nonfamily members. And especially men with small children, at weekends, slouching round kitchen tables in T-shirts and boxers, exuding clouds of martyrdom and depression as the kids splot Coco Pops on the floor. None of us is at our best first thing in the morning – which is why, for many people, not having to deal with anyone before lunch is one of the great luxuries of the weekend.

Averagely irritable urbanites tempted by falling prices should bear this in mind before investing in that dreamt-of weekend cottage retreat. Because, by the time it’s been paid for and poshed up a bit, they will probably have discovered that country life (and I speak from many years’ experience) is mostly damp and, without good company, pretty boring. They’ll quickly need to import weekend guests to make it interesting again.

And which city-dweller hasn’t fanta-sised about that? Spending long evenings with friends beside an open fire; eating unhurried, delicious, home-cooked food together round a pleasantly rustic dining table; setting out on a long country walk and winding up with a wholesome lunch in a delightful country pub? I know I have. Endlessly.

The trick is to find a way to do all that while avoiding the affection-diminishing consequences of seeing too much of each other at unflatteringly close quarters. What one needs – or what I sometimes think I would like – is a cottage with a big, hospitable kitchen and a nice, cheap B&B close by.

Blow my cotton socks off, here it is.

Glendale House sounds a lot grander than it is. It’s a three-bedroom, 18th-century cottage, semi-detached, in the middle of the sort of village I imagine Agatha Christie had in mind when creating a home for Miss Marple. Times change, however. Miss Marples tend to get shunted into kindly institutions nowadays – and cottages like these go to second-homers. Painswick (aka “the Queen of the Cotswolds”, according to the estate agent’s brochure) has plenty of them – two on this street alone.

“It’s a bit potty,” the agent said to me. “I actually think the village is overpriced.” Potty or not, Painswick is definitely stunning: a jumble of narrow, tightly packed streets built onto one side of a picture-book green and pleasant valley. It has a 15th-century church (specked with civil-war shrapnel, apparently, if you look close enough) and a churchyard famous, among people who study such things, for its 99 immaculately clipped ancient yew trees.

It used to be a common whinge among the people of Painswick that the village was uninhabitable in summer months because of American tourists. The Americans don’t come any more – but they have left an impressive choice of restaurants, pubs and decent places to stay in their wake. Also, if I’m honest, a couple of tearooms. And some slightly depressing giftie shops. Let’s brush over that. Because there’s no such thing as perfection, and in England, wherever it is close, there’ll never be a gift shop far away.

The house costs £395,000, and the second-homer who buys it will probably want to update the avocado bathroom suite next to the master bedroom. Otherwise, not much needs to be done. Most of the rooms – surprisingly light and airy for such a small cottage – look out over beautiful valley views. The kitchen needs sprucing up, but it opens, via some cute stable doors, onto a lovely private courtyard.

It’s a waste to own a country doll’s house like this and not to have an open fire, so I’d get rid of the wood-burner in the sitting room. And that would be it. Assuming I had any money left, I’d suggest to my friends (dotted about in B&Bs round the village) that we forget the country walk and head straight to the pub. Then I might even cook them all dinner. Sounds like heaven.

Or almost. Last time our family tried to leave London for a weekend, the entire operation, meant to take about two hours, took double that: an hour to pack and get out of the house; an hour getting through Friday-night London traffic, and another two on the motor-way. The children squabbled. The baby upchucked all over her car seat. We arrived in filthy tempers, late for dinner and smelling of sick.

It’s an awful sweat, really, ever going anywhere when you have children. It is much easier just staying still. In fact, maybe the sum of human happiness would be greater if Londoners – and other city-dwellers – simply stayed put.

At which point, perhaps Miss Marple could afford to escape her kindly institution and buy her heritage back. She’d probably think the avocado bathroom quite updated enough. And she could eat breakfast on her own, day after day, without ever annoying anyone.

Glendale House in Painswick, pictured, is a three-bedroom 18th century cottage. It is on the market through Murrays for £395,000. 01452 814655

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