We all get a bit desperate in early middle age: it can lead us to do foolish and destructive things. Taking up a wholesome new hobby to ease the crisis would seem a pretty harmless and sensible way of getting through.

Not always. An old friend of mine, albeit an above-averagely hopeless one, hit 45 the other day and got really depressed. It prompted all sorts of uncomfortable questions, to which he didn’t have - or perhaps didn’t want to have - the answer.

In any case, for various reasons, he decided that the key to his future peace of mind lay in pig-keeping. He bought a magnificent farmer’s cap - because, in middle age especially, new hobbies tend to be mostly about the accessories - enrolled on a one-day pig-keeping course, rented a field from a local landowner and trotted off to market.

The trouble was, the field was a good 20-minute walk from his sofa, so the process of feeding the pigs, which was meant to have been the chief source of his pig-keeping enjoyment (before actually eating the sausages), quickly became a chore.

Then, one night, possibly because he was drunk, he forgot to feed the pigs altogether. And the next night it was terribly cold outside and raining. And the night after that, unfortunately, he was drunk again. And the night after that, I suppose he reckoned that if the poor animals had survived this long without him, they could probably survive another day. Until, eventually, the pigs grew so thin that somebody in the village reported him, and a man with a badge and a large lorry came and carted the skinny creatures away.

My friend, whose quest for an amusing hobby had started in such hopeful, wholesome innocence, was almost certainly fined and may now have a criminal record. The entire enterprise was an expensive and painful disaster - not just for the pigs - and a warning to all bewildered midlifers, whatever their circumstances, not to launch into doing anything new without thinking long and hard beforehand. Ever.

Easy to say, I suppose. As I write, languishing somewhere in some corner of my house are a fishing rod I never even worked out how to put together, a bread-making machine, a software package for writing Hollywood screen-plays, an architect’s easel (for designing furniture) and a Spanish Complete Course Box Set (£95.53) that hasn’t even been out of its wrapping. Enough of that. One day, I will put the whole lot up for sale on eBay. And maybe, like the brilliant Ian and Ginny Greig, I’ll be clever enough to turn my extravagant midlife enthusiams into a tidy little profit. In 2006, this couple, who run a (clearly rather successful) textile company in London, decided that their own chances of midlife contentment would be considerably improved by spending more time in the country. So, rather like Marie Antoinette, they kitted themselves up with a sweet little farm. Copyhold Farm, in Goring Heath, a hamlet 15 minutes outside Reading, is a five-bedroom 16th-century farmhouse. It comes with a swimming pool, a tennis court, a pool house, several useful barns, a granny flat, a gardener’s cottage, stables and about 80 acres of lusciously green and pleasant grassland, with a further 20 acres of woodland.

They did the place up: it’s in immaculate, luxurious condition, inside and out. Mrs Greig installed a steam room in the master bedroom suite and a private gym in one of the outhouses. They put down pheasants in the wood, enough for a small shoot.

“They wanted to develop the place as a bio-farm,” says Paul Burge, the estate handyman, who showed me round, “to grow elephant grass for biofuel. It’s something that hasn’t happened, I’m afraid.” In fact, the Greigs appear to have been so busy running their textile business that they didn’t have time for their new hobby.

Here we are, then, two years later, and the little corner of paradise they created is back on the market - for £3.6m. The agents are keen to point out that, as it is, what with farm subsidies and the rental value of the various barns and cottages, Copyhold Farm has an “income potential” of about £40,000 a year.

I’m no financier, but that doesn’t sound like a great return on £3.6m - or a great selling point. What’s £40,000 here or there, after all? The Greigs are asking £800,000 more than they paid for the place two years ago. And what’s the point of shelling out £3.6m on a gloriously private rural idyll if you’re going to let half of it out to strangers? (Indeed, the gardener’s cottage and the granny flat are actually adjoined to the main house.)

Money aside, it could be lovely. Buy a few organic chickens, some horses and a nice jersey cow or two. Pay someone else to feed them all. Then, just when the wholepetit hameaugame is gettinga bit boring (and the market is beginning to recover), put the place back up for sale again. And, with the profit, buy a fleet of jolly little aeroplanes to play with instead.

Assuming, that is, there hasn’t been a revolution by then, and your decapitated head isn’t lying in a bloodstained bucket somewhere. Which would be too awful.

To catch up on previous columns, or to have your say, go to timesonline.co.uk/property

Copyhold Farm, £3.6m

What is it? A 16th-century farmhouse set in more than 100 acres, with a swimming pool, a tennis court and outbuildings

Where is it? Goring Heath, in Oxfordshire, 15 minutes’ drive from Reading

Who is selling it? Knight Frank; 020 7861 1549, www.knightfrank.co.uk

Not tempted? Here's what £3.6m buys eleswhere

Six-bedroom Pimlico House, in Kings Langley, three miles from Hemel Hempstead, is set in 21 acres and has three reception rooms, four bathrooms and a two-bed cottage. Savills; 01582 465002, www.savills.co.uk

A two-bedroom, 1,750 sq ft, south-facing flat on Upper Grosvenor Street, in Mayfair, with two large reception rooms, a terrace and a 24-hour porter. Knight Frank; 020 7499 1012, www.knightfrank.co.uk

The Dunes is a six-bedroom period property with three bathrooms, five reception rooms and a tennis court in its four acres. It is in Penn, four miles from High Wycombe. Knight Frank; 020 7861 1528, www.knightfrank.co.uk

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers