*This is the correct Norfolk spelling.

I have just accepted an invitation to a wedding in Mexico at the end of March.

I don’t suppose I’ll actually get to see a lot of Mexico itself, to be honest, because the wedding celebrations are taking a week at the resort, but no matter. I’m still excited and very pleased to be asked. The week is very convenient for me, but a longer time wouldn’t be easy to fit in, but I’m thinking about it and it will depend, in part, on whether I’ll be travelling with another member of Mim, the bride’s, family. She is very kind to want me to come – she loved my mum dearly, they shared a birthday and mummy was something of a substitute grandparent, as Mim’s only grandparent didn’t have good health.

Our families go back a long way – a really long way, as my father and her great-grandmother used to go to dancing classes together 100 years ago and the friendship has continued through the generations. Mim moved to Canada some years ago, where she met her fiancé. As lots of their friends and families are quite far-flung, they’ve got no particular need to keep the wedding close to their home. Mim’s grandfather is Dutch and she grew up in both England and the Netherlands, so I’m not sure where she really thinks of as her homeland. Her mother grew up in Amsterdam, but feels more at home over here, where she now lives.

If there had ever been any question of living in another country, that’s long past for me. I feel very much at home when I’m in India, but the culture is just too different. Most friends who live abroad (that is, in a non-English speaking country) seem to be part of an ex-pat community rather than the general population, which would be too restricted for me. Even friends who speak the local language well spend most of their social time with other British people and I sometimes wonder if that’s what they really expected when they moved there. I think it’s different if you marry someone from another country and move there, you’re more likely to assimilate. But family connections will keep me in East Angular anyway. There’s no likelihood I’d ever want to move further away from my children. Tim’s sister- and brother-in-law retired to a family home in Pembrokeshire a few years ago and I certainly love my visits there, but it’s too far from everywhere else. Getting to London in a couple of hours or so is a priority for me.

I’d been finding the train journey to London something of a slog for several years, because of the unreliable train service. I didn’t miss it during lockdown but, once I started going again (and they’d used their time well, in improving the tracks and buying new rolling stock), I fell in love with the capital again. Also with Norwich, which is a delightful city (as long as you’re not traipsing around looking to buy shoes). So I’m afraid that Norfolk is stuck with me.