When people talk about needing to mend some fences, they’re usually speaking metaphorically. But not Kate Humble. The TV-presenterturned-farmer-turned-cookery book writer is halfway through our interview when she (briefly) turns her focus to the walls of her 118-acre rented farm. It’s not your usual celebrity interview chat, but then Humble’s not your usual celebrity. More than a decade before the rest of us starting longing for a post-pandemic escape to the country, Humble was ahead of the curve, fleeing London for a better life.
‘People say “Oh, isn’t it really difficult moving to the countryside when you’ve lived in the city? Don’t your Jimmy Choos get dirty?”’ she laughs. ‘But I was like a fish out of water in the city. I had a creeping realisation that I was just in the wrong habitat. I was like a squirrel in a meadow without a tree. So I went back to my roots. They just weren’t my geographical roots – they were my psychological roots.’