L FOR LEATHER

Two things struck me on my recent sojourn to Britain and that is how fat and aggresive people have become since my last visit a few months back. On they keep going so much so that they seem to line any space they occupy. Like the woman who wound down the car window and started to bellow at another who made the mistake of stepping out in front of the car in which she wasn't even driving. My fading memory is of me standing outside a curry house and the fat woman screaming about what she would do to the other woman never mind that it was dark, snowing and the car was in the wrong and oh yes, I could see some small petrified children in the back seat who looked as though they had been kidnapped. The next day there was a bit of a kerfuffle on a 261 bus outside Sainsbury's in Lee. As I steppped off the bus I could hear a passenger telling the bus driver that he hadn't even 'dignified THAT with an answer'. I presumed this was part of the Respect programme that is all the rage in Britain. As my foot left the bus the doors slammed shut and it, the bus, began to shout 'call the Police, this bus is under attack'. Everyone on the bus just leaned back and lined the walls with their apathy and looked out at me with an apathetic look which had a glimmer of 'don't bother' about it. I did ring the police but they didn't come and the youth got off the bus by opening the doors and then started to wrench the wing mirror off with all the strength he could harness.

Another thing that always makes me feel a bit alien and wondering why I hadn't noticed it before is the advertisments for beds as soon as the Christmas dinner is over. I have never met anyone who has bought a bed, they just seem to appear and no one remembers buying one. Those adverts sent one half of the couple we were staying with into an apoplectic fit when his wife said the reason we were sleeping in their bed was that they needed a new one and the one she had seen was 1,500 quid. There was one particular bed advert that started with the words 'do you need a new bed?' which I began to dread as much as another ad which had a man singing 'Go Compare' everytime it came on and I still don't know what he was trying to sell.

The time spent with the children of family and friends at Christmas was the best albeit short and I think I might be turning into one of those aunts whose moral obligation is eventually to take her nephews and nieces dog racing and maybe casinos. Children often only remember the food when you ask them how their day has been and need reminding of the other bits which always prove interesting, in one case the knowledge that astronauts have to wear nappies in space was remembered after a trip to The Science Musuem. I guess adults are no different as we can often only remember the drink.

So I guess I should be grateful that I returned with my life and have been greeted by a bunch of saints namely Anthony and Vincent. San Anton Abad or Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of Egypt will be celebrated once again in the morn with a blessing for the animals at the end of my road. A big bonfire and jacket potatoes always guarantees a crowd in Spain. Not much has happened here apart from the brouhaha at the local hop on New Year's Eve when about 140 coats went AWOL and the police were called in to investigate or rather 140 locals went and complained. I bet that kept them on their toes. It reminded me of my coat that went walkies and how I ended up going home on a freezing night from a bar here wearing someone else's. It was quite a nice coat but the sleeves were somewhere around my elbows so not a good swap. The nest day I got a call from my boss telling me my coat hand ended up in Monzon a small town miles away but the owner of the other coat worked locally and was waiting with mine to hand it over. I stuffed hers into an old plastic bag and when we met I am ashamed to say that she had lovingly prepared mine by folding and wrapping it neatly in some luxurious carrier.