Sociable Bunnies!

After the celebration of Orlando’s birthday on Friday we went to Orpington on Saturday for a 21st birthday party with some girls who we previously met in Turkey on holiday. A charming time was had by all but I was struck by the provincial nature of the people there. When I was younger I used to travel by train from my home town of Bexhill to Brighton, Canterbury, London and quite a few other places. Admittedly while my father was living in Dorset the journey there was a bit onerous but otherwise I was happy to travel for an hour or two. Many of the people there (particularly the young ones) viewed trips to London like an expedition to the Antarctic only with Discos and shopping. I’ve run into this mentality before, best reflected in the words of a lovely waitress in a Little Chef1 at Newport Pagnell service station who made me, by much dint of effort, the worst hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted. She enquired about our journey2 and we explained that we had travelled from London which she then described as being “A right long way away, in’t it?”

I find it very difficult to understand that attitude. I may have travelled a bit more that most people but finding that people don’t believe that Peckham is a real place and that their main intent in life is to breed and settle, probably where they were brought up and then only travel to places that are exactly the same as where they live with sunshine and food they can complain about. It is a mystery to me.

1 Notes for the unfamiliar. Little Chef’s are purported to be restaurants serving delicious meals on the highways of Great Britain. And the Queen is really a dwarfish Czechoslovakian Traffic Warden.

2 Our journey entailed a trip to Northampton for New Year. The trip involved visiting a pub that shut at 11.30pm on New Years Eve and listening to a girl who wanted to have sexual congress with her best friend’s boyfriend because she didn’t have one. Her friend agreed and the boyfriend said “Ooooriatte”. Many people from Northampton have an accent not dissimilar to Bubble from ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. The word Acrylic is pronounced Akrilack and everyone wears it!