maybe it's because I'm a liberal

...that I love London so, although I'm stuck up here in the north now unfortunately and I don't know if I mentioned it before but it's grim. I also love wife in the north of course, who seems to have had an uncannily similar weekend to my own. On Saturday my husband and I both went down to the cottage so we could feel good about helping the village by combining two houses into one and reducing the village's carbon footprint by displacing an entire family from the community. While we were down there I’m afraid I got rather annoyed with the builder fellow who's doing the knock through. Now I’m a liberal, and this family occupies four houses at present and you can't get much more liberal than that, and being a liberal means that everyone should speak like I do wherever I go because a liberal is the only thing to be. As far as I'm concerned it’s no more acceptable for someone up here in the North East to call me pet than it is for a waiter in some foreign clime to give me a dirty look when I order the polenta slowly and loudly in Cheltenham Ladies College english. That's just pure prejudice on his part and we all know what a jolly bad thing prejuduce and condescending stereotypes are, don't we boys and girls! I've decided that when my husband moves up north we will reclaim the north for the God, Harry and received pronunciation! I'm sure if those Gideon chaps started putting Forster in hotel bedrooms instead of the bible that would be a start in showing people how to behave. We may no longer have the empire but now the north has become the white man's burden and with my huband at my side we'll jolly well re-colour the north pink just like in the good old days!

But for now though, Sunday has arrived and as I write this my husband and Fabio are on the sleeper back to London, making the sacrifice of sharing a berth to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. As I close the front door after them I contemplate that he's left me again with nothing but the children, my veet squeezed in the middle (men!), the joint account chequebook and an aga catalogue mysteriously stuck together at the centrefold. Just as I gather my thoughts, my new mission to achieve universal radio 4 pronunciation receives it's first impetus as Milly asks me 'mummy, do we own some seaside all for ourselves now?' 'Whatever do you mean dearest?' 'Well mummy, when Fabio had left with daddy, Natalia asked us what we thought now we'd seen daddy's beach'. So many people not like me, so little time to change them, sigh..