Chances are, the stress of the past few years have had a pretty significant impact on your skin. First there was the pandemic and constant face mask-wearing, and now we’re amid a cost of living crisis, climate crisis and witnessing heartbreaking conflicts around the world. The myriad of changes to your daily routine, mood and lifestyle as a consequence may have led to dryness, breakouts and other tricky-to-treat complaints.
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I set off at 5am. Not unusual for workaholic me. I have left the collies with Nic, and am driving to Exmoor. A distance of 330 miles. I can feel Gracie’s presence on my back seat, so I’m not alone. She rode pillion for 15 years, as she could never be left on her own: far too chewy. Her pointy-nosed presence is tangible, as though there is a two-bar electric fire in the back. I drove the very same journey, only in reverse, in 2012: five cats in the front, four collies in the back, several sheep and five horses in a box. I’d sold my farm (50 acres! Dear god, I now inhabit a postage stamp) to buy my sister a cottage. I didn’t quite have the £275k asking price but, as luck would have it, I had not long driven through a flood, writing off my BMW, and the insurance money covered the last few grand of the deposit. The Yorkshire Dales was a new start, though I had to rent for a year (£200,000!) as
I wasn’t allowed to have two mortgages just then. It was a gamble that I’d be able to earn enough. One I ultimately lost.