Too late to book a holiday? Sims 4: Cottage Living may have the answer

This expansion pack to the ever-popular simulation game is a friendly chance to experience The Good Life, complete with crops, cows and very nosy neighbours

Like a lot of people at the end of the Covid-19 restrictions, I made the mistake of checking out a few self-catering holiday sites to try to book a late break for the family. I could almost hear the online availability calendars laughing at me. Anything that was still available would have required me to re-mortgage our own house and sell the car. Sadly, it looks like I won't be spending a week lounging around in a tiny, leaky Dorset cottage, living on a diet of cream teas and fish suppers. It's almost unconscionable.

With amazing good timing, however, Electronic Arts has just released its Cottage Living expansion pack for Sims 4, the latest themed addition to the long-running life simulation series. As ever, you create a sim character then build a house for them, but now there are lots of design components drawn from idealised English country house architecture. Stable doors, stone-trimmed windows, ancient oak floors and decorative country pub signs allow you to indulge your cottagecore fantasies. You can also choose to be off grid, meaning you have to grow all your own vegetables - and you can keep cows and chickens for your milk and eggs, and llamas for wool - although they are incredibly demanding, requiring regular feeding, cleaning and treats. I had to abandon my career to look after them, like a modern simulation of The Good Life - which is why I designed my sims to resemble Tom and Barbara.