PALIN MITENK BLOG

By Richard Simpson

She has already quit Twitter and Facebook, and put her BlackBerry, laptop and iPod into storage.
Now Lily Allen appears to be completing her retreat from the showbusiness whirl by turning her back on London in favour of a sleepy corner of the Cotswolds.

The 24-year-old singer has spent months looking for a picture-postcard bolthole and has finally settled on a five-bedroom period home in a pretty Gloucestershire village.

She fell in love with the house after viewing it with her father, the actor Keith Allen, who recently moved into a £650,000 farmhouse in the area.

Miss Allen faces competition from another buyer but has offered to meet the £1.3million asking price.

An estate agency source said it was expected that the deal would be done in a matter of weeks when she returns from her world tour with the rapper Dizzee Rascal.

In the meantime, she has put her three-bedroom North London flat up for rent at £750 per week and taken a short-term agreement on a townhouse in Marylebone.

The Cotswolds property has an outdoor heated swimming pool, paddocks and extensive equestrian facilities including a stableyard.

The high-security home has electronically operated double gates and a Swedish-style barbecue hut and, according to the estate agents' description, is ideal for entertaining.

Neighbours in the surrounding villages include Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Moss, Kate Winslet and Anne Robinson.


Coutnry life: Lily hopes to make the £1.3million five bedroom house her home when she finishes her world tour


Miss Allen's current album, It's Not Me, It's You, topped the UK album charts last year while her debut album, Alright Still, reached No 2.

Her original plan was to buy a house in Somerset near Glastonbury – her 'spiritual home' and location of the annual music festival she has visited with her father for some 20 years


Perfect recipe: Neighbours include Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Moss, Kate Winslet and Anne Robinson


But when he moved to the Cotswolds, she decided to follow suit.
Miss Allen recently spoke of plans to buy a country house and getting her boyfriend Sam Cooper to help do the work on it.

She said: 'He is in the construction business so he will be able to tell me when my dreams are unworkable.'

Earlier this month, she spoke of taking 'one or two years' out of the music industry spotlight.

And in an interview last month, she said: 'I just had this revelation that Facebook, blogging, all those things were becoming a total addiction. I'd be with my boyfriend or my mum and they'd have just got half of me. So I put my BlackBerry, my laptop, my iPod in a box and that's the end.

'I won't use email, I play records on vinyl, I don't blog. I've got more time, more privacy. We've ended up in this world of unreal communication and I don't want that. I want real life back.'


source: dailymail