Why I Love Northern England, Part III

I’ve been touched by how supportive friends and acquaintances have been lately, from my tai chi instructor to the well-groomed blue-eyed French-Canadian civil servant who got me my passport in three hours to the darling of my heart. I understand a little better helplessness in the face of people who have lost someone they love. But I also understand that sympathy works wonders, and that when all else fails you can just get pregnant – Little Bitch made me smile by reminding me she’s due to ‘even the score’ by popping an infant in the next week or so.

We can’t all pop babies at the drop of a hat, but I know many people may still want to do tangible things besides offering sympathy to make me feel better. Thanks. I’ve thought of something, inspired by an event yesterday during the cortége going to the crematorium.

The funeral finished around the same time school let out. We left the charming old Norman church where my grandfather had done so much conscientious Anglican good work (but all the way through, pretty hymns not withstanding, I couldn’t shake the feeling it was just a made-up religion for backwashed Catholics) and drove sedately behind the hearse, four veritable fountains of tears trailing after my endlessly curious ‘oh I say, what’s behind that big rock up there’ grandfather for the last time.

My aunt had her street-side window cracked a couple of inches to stop the windows from fogging, I suppose, which gave three of us (my grandmother, thankfully, hears nothing below the pitch of a shout) the benefit of listening to the editorials of passing schoolchildren; mostly limited to ‘ooooooooooeerrrrgh! A dead baw-deee!’

She closed the window.

So if you really want to make Mistress La Spliffe and her family feel better, please find a bratty schoolchild from Yorkshire, step on its face, have your photograph taken and submit the results to me. Each will make our hearts sing and the finest will be posted on this blog.