Letting go of the glitz: the true story of one woman's struggle to live the simple life in Chelsea

Help! Im Married Alive!Julia Stephenson, struggling to cope with life as a Surrey housewife, grimly welded to her electric floor polisher and fed up with her golf-addicted, BMW-driving husband, bolts to the fleshpots of London.

Here she forges a new life as single girl about town in her Chelsea eyrie, a short walk from Peter Jones.

Bemused to find herself an It-girl life soon becomes a ritzy blur of parties, popping corks and flashbulbs, while handsome aristocratic boyfriends come and go.

Realising she isnt cut out for this she reinvents herself as a femme serieuse representing the Green Party at the general election and begins to convert her fl at into the first carbon-neutral dwelling in Sloane Square.Giving up her usual dating fodder of Old Etonians and bankers she embarks on a tempestuous love affair with her builder.

Who wants to be driven around in a Porsche when you can be ferried about in a spacious white van that runs on waste cooking oil?

Life is so much better in every way when you let go of the glitz