Swingers in the shires? It helps to pass the time

But over the past year, I have discovered that what goes on in my neck of the woods would not look out of place in a Jilly Cooper novel. For I am apparently surrounded by adultery, swingers, aficionados of group sex and a couple of rather active women who don't seem to mind which sex of person they go to bed with. I had no idea any of this existed until last summer, when it was so hot everyone took to partying outdoors.

And what parties people had.

Every night my husband and I would hear champagne corks popping and peals of laughter from gardens on either side of us.

One evening when I had gone to bed, my husband decided to knock on the door of a friend's house nearby. What he discovered nearly blew his mind. Everyone was drunk, some people were snorting cocaine and, as the night or morning, really wore on, two girls and one bloke went upstairs and indulged in a very noisy threesome that could be heard around the valley.

When I got up the next morning, I found my husband in the kitchen wearing nothing but his jeans and a stupefied smile. "You'll never guess what happened last night," he said.

But that, it turns out, was the tip of the iceberg. A few weeks back, the pub up the hill got raided by the police. Apparently it was providing call girls for commuters who came off the M40 to sample the delights of the mainly East European girls who worked behind the bar.

Another pub about five miles away had a well-known lock-in policy. What I didn't know was that after the lock-in there were swingers parties. I only found this out because I was alerted to a website which included details.

At first I was stunned when I found this out. But now I think this decadent living is partly to do with the summer heat, alcohol, bucolic fields, picnics, all terribly seductive and the fact that we seem to have so much more time on our hands. Many people here work from home. They knock off at 5.30pm and then they go to the pub and drink and flirt. The cinema is miles away, as are the only art gallery and theatre.

By contrast, however lurid the temptations of the capital might seem, working hard and living a city life actually keeps people on the straight and narrow. Either that, or white, middle-class shirefolk are just a bunch of perverts..