I was slightly startled to see, in the newsletter from our dentist (whatever next), that they now offer facial rejevenation. Botox in fact. It’s the Sage’s dentist who is the practitioner so maybe, when he next returns from an appointment his whole face will be strangely smooth and unmoving instead of just his mouth.

But also in the post is a card (which of course I haven’t opened) from lovely daughter for Mothering Sunday. As we’ll be away together over the weekend, Ro is only too aware that the whole Anus of Responsibility (as El has always called it) is upon him for mummy’s Happy Day.

All families have their quirky expressions don’t they. Ro thought for many years that the correct expression was ‘no holes barred’, and why not. He is also responsible for Emergency Russians. We have an elderly, very Norfolk and very dear, friend who is convinced that in an emergency one raises a Human Cry.

Norfolk dialect is in the news at present as it’s going to be taught in one of the county’s schools. I was happy to hear the Divine Postie being played on Radio 4 news yesterday as an intro to the story. I don’t have a Norfolk accent myself (I don’t think) but surely everyone uses some dialect words. I didn’t know that ‘on the huh’ (not straight; e.g. a crookedly hanging picture) wasn’t mainstream English for years and bishybarnaby is an irrisistable name for a ladybird.

I’m never very aware of regional accents, although I remember as a child finding our gardener hard to understand, which I found inexplicable in later years, so it must have been about the time we moved to Suffolk. Accents I particularly like do zing through my consciousness however; West Country – the lovely soft letter R, East Anglia – rare to catch when you are away – and Dutch. We had Dutch au pairs when I was a little girl whom we loved like family and I suppose that’s the reason.