husbands in the south

Yesterday I was coming back from having lunch with some Labour Party chums in the local market town. I was feeling rather down in the dumps, I must say. Nobody understands what a struggle it is to have a husband who spends some of the week in his office a few hours away down the motorway you know, leaving me alone to look after the children and the nanny, and on top of that champagne at lunchtime always makes me a little maudlin so I really needed cheering up. Then I noticed one of my neighbours across the street. She’s a bit of a local but we always seem to get on quite well nevertheless so I went over for a chat to try and raise my spirits. I struck up a conversation and asked what had brought her into town. ‘My husband has a tour in Kandahar coming up Rilly’, she said, ‘so he’s shopping for new boots’. 'A tour?’ I replied, ‘That sounds rather fun. Kandahar; that’s near Harrogate isn’t it?’ I asked. She looked rather concerned and not, and in my view I'm afraid, about my rather more serious worries. I supposed she must have been wondering whether her husband would finish tiling the bathroom before he went away or something, but really, it’s just just me-me-me with some people, sigh.