Since the pandemic, remote properties have been marketed for off-grid living. But a life spent gardening and eating cormorants is not for me

I have just been to the Hebrides, because trudging across tussocks in the rain is my ancestrally transmitted idea of fun. The weather was fine, actually, and the midges hadn’t reached peak summer blood lust, which meant we could indulge in that universal holiday activity: fantasising about living in the destination.

On one walk, we stumbled across the perfect beachfront cottage, utterly isolated, accessible only on foot or by quad bike. Was it the perfect end-times home, we wondered; was there enough growing land, a fresh water source, high ground for spotting marauding – possibly mutant – attackers?