She’s not to everyone’s taste – sucking up to Jeffrey Epstein, having her toes sucked by her financial adviser, sucking dry her own and others’ coffers – but amid the vulgarity, there are things about Sarah Ferguson I’ve long grudgingly appreciated.

Her heaving jolly-hockey-sticks positivity. Entrepreneurial instincts. Refusal to go quietly. Her knack for bouncing back from shame, bankruptcy and cancer. Dedication to her daughters.

We met once, at a 2003 event in Melbourne. En route, Fergie learned her father had died. Yet, she stepped off the plane in full work mode, head high, eyes dry. Watching her up close, I wondered if she was superhuman or a sociopath.

These days, she’s more an outcast. Title: gone. And charities, reputation, most shots at redemption and her home.

Along with her BFF and ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, she’s being booted from Windsor’s Royal Lodge sometime next year.

For the first time since she galumphed out of Westminster Abbey in 1986 as QE2’s daughter-in-law, Fergie will have to fend for herself. Spruiking Dead Sea skincare? Running the fryer as a school lunch lady? As beanstalk Jack’s old mum in a panto? “Behind you!” Wait, that’s not the villain, it’s fate.

But it may not yet come to that. Because reports suggest that when the royal gates clang shut forever, Fergie’s bacon will be saved by her daughter, Princess Beatrice, and her bloke, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi.

The couple and their two kids live “in some style in an unnamed ‘quaint village’ in the Cotswolds”, according to UK’s The Times. Think six bedrooms, pool, tennis court. And an old cowshed.

Locals claim the cowshed has just had a glow up. All hint of dung gone. Smart money says it will soon be a gratis granny flat for a certain former duchess.

According to The Times, “some observers reckon this downsizing splatters a fresh dose of humiliation on the nation’s famous freeloader”. I say: give us a spell. I say this sounds unreal.

And I feel my tight-lipped appreciation of Fergie’s resilience has burgeoned into wanting what she has.

Moving into a granny flat in your kid’s backyard is surely a life upgrade, not downgrade. Certainly for Fergie: she gets shot of the disgraced Andrew and the draughty giant country pile which surely now has bad juju.

She can do puppet shows for the grandkids when Beatrice wants a date night. Wander into the kitchen around dinner time. Supervise the cleaning lady (unless that’s her own new side hustle). Steal the good olive oil. Be “accidentally” present for gossip between Bea and Edo. Winning!

Living with your adult kids and their kids is my dream. Were I to ever have a manifesting practice, a luxe granny flat would be my focus along with a new full back for the Bombers.

I reckon you could run a ripper life from a back corner. Semi-communal living, tacit permission to interfere or at least be a busybody, independence when you want it.

Karchering handled by the home owner. Proximity to the tiny, gorgeous moments – kids’ wet hair after bath time, someone practising spelling, someone wrestling – and no responsibility for anyone’s teeth.

Like being backstage at a show you love but no longer have to perform in. Who wouldn’t love it? Where do I sign? And which lucky kid gets to house me? Packing air fryer and boundary issues as we speak.

All this awaits Fergie. No more Ascot hats but plenty of time to indulge her grandchildren and perhaps wander up to the local pub to join a darts league or try the odd gin flight. Maybe even find a gent to chat up – she’s reportedly keen to dip those famous toes into the dating pool again.

While I can actually see her honking with delight while slinging spuds at a school canteen, Fergie has a better unplayed shot. Not at redemption but reward.

She should lock herself in the cowshed and pump out an unbridled tell-all: Andrew and Epstein, the Diana years, the Queen at cocktail hour.

She literally has nothing left to lose. Forget the granny flat, she could be sitting on a gold mine.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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