Bertie's Retreat

Bertie has had it 'up to here ' Despite working dawn 'til dusk in The City, and knowing he was the most effective man in the firm, the one role he wants goes to the Chairman's secret totty. He's lonely, frustrated and bored. Walking home through Hyde Park that evening, he makes a life-changing decision: he will not sign a new contract but pack a knapsack, disappear and take 'a year and a day' off, to seek his fortune With his private income he can afford it. Who would believe that, within 24 hours, the shapely rear view of a bad-tempered young horsewoman might lead him into a series of events that would turn his life upside down in a way he never expected, deep in the Wiltshire countryside? This is the tale of how our hero got mixed up in the dwindling fortunes of an aristocratic widow whose late husband's last attempt at financial survival involved property development on land next to the River Avon. These meadows now flood annually. How can such a scheme, essential to paying off the estate's debts, ever go ahead? It's a situation that calls for a stroke of brilliance to give it any chance of success. That, together with a recalcitrant stallion, the Manor House cat and the Rector's daughter all conspire to map out Bertie's career and love life for the next decade or more. Some fortune But then - when you've got everything, what more could you want?