I really like where we live. Our Dorset village might be mostly a new build - but it is still a rural village with clean air, almost no crime and has a strong sense of community. But to be honest since moving here in 2009 I've not really been much of a social animal. Lovely place though it is it lacks one important thing - a pub.

Now you may scoff, or even offer some temperance advice. Hold fire. I am serious and this has nothing at all to do with alcohol. In fact I don't drink that much anymore - hard to believe if you read some of the tales of my youth. I've always loved pubs - whether drinking pint after pint of ale with friends, or just drinking something softer and enjoying a good book. Pubs are great places to meet and chat, I used to work behind a bar many years ago and the social aspect of that is something I miss, though not the work.

It comes down to this - I miss having a local.

...

We do have some good pubs nearby, but they are several miles and our village doesn't have a safe footpath for night use. To be a local, one's pub really should be a short walk away. Somewhere where one can just pop out to for an hour or so when an opportunity arises.

As I told you last week, we're about to move to a different village. Our life is going to be different. I'm going to be taking on more of the parental and household roles and my wife will be working longer hours. Many of those hours will be in the evening too. I know that nice though our new house is - I'll want to escape the four walls every so often. And of course spending all day with my gorgeous toddler might be wonderful - the most wonderful experience of my life actually - but I'll crave the conversation of men, the sound busy pub and the taste of a good pint.

When we looked round our new village we were glad then to see there was a pub less than five minutes walk from the vicarage. Hurrah. But then we heard that the pub had recently closed down. Boo. Yesterday we learned that the pub would actually be re-opening soon under new management, management that had had great success elsewhere. So it sounds like I'm sorted for my little home away from home, where I can escape for a bit to be blokey.

The truth is that I've needed such an escape. I've got lots of great friends but they are scattered across our nation and the globe. Much as I'd like to phone a mate up and go for a pint one cannot pop out to Manchester or Darlington so easily. And while I'd much rather go to the pub with my good friends so far away, I'm looking forward to wandering down to my new local for the first time and saying hello the locals and taking my place in our new home.

And should one on the house be offered to the new vicar's husband, I won't refuse.