Former I'm A Celebrity contestant Nadine Dorries is already thinking of moving again after swapping her six-bedroom home for a cottage in the Cotswolds, admitting she made the move too soon. The 69-year-old now plans to have the house valued and has re-installed the Rightmove app on her phone.
Too soon to downsize
Writing in the Daily Mail, she said: “I haven't told my family yet, but next spring I'm having the house valued and have re-installed the Rightmove app on my phone.”
With her three daughters - Jennifer, Cassie and Philippa - all grown up, Dorries had felt it was the right time to move to a smaller home. Her cottage is in what she described as one of the Cotswolds' most beautiful villages, believed to be near the Gloucestershire/Oxfordshire border.
Little space for entertaining
But the former Conservative MP has found that the smaller rooms leave little space for entertaining. She warned others at a similar stage in life not to rush into downsizing.
She said: “My final piece of advice is: if you are thinking of downsizing for the same reasons I did, don't do it too soon, while you are still young enough to enjoy the space.”
She added: “Every year I host a Christmas party. This year, I find myself looking at the size of the rooms and trying to recall the Guinness World Records for the number of people squeezed into a phone box.”
Tourists and boxes
Dorries explained that she decluttered extensively before relocating and brought “very little” with her. Yet she still finds herself surrounded by boxes because there is nowhere to unpack their contents. Her hope that someone else would take on Sunday lunches or Christmas duties has also failed to materialise.
She admits she feels “guilty” about acknowledging her unhappiness in the new property, even to herself, and worries that while the location is ideal, she has bought the wrong house. During her first summer in the cottage, she also found tourists stopping to admire her home.
She said: “I've spent the summer opening my front door to find American tourists taking photographs of my house and marvelling at our English country gardens.”
With its charming villages, honey-coloured stone buildings and rolling countryside, the Cotswolds attracts both famous residents and visitors from around the world. Places such as Castle Combe, Bourton-on-the-Water and Bibury are frequently hailed as among Britain's loveliest spots. Despite Dorries' regrets about her choice of house, the area remains widely regarded as one of Britain's most desirable places to live or visit.
