3rd May, 2009, Planet Surrey

Beam me up somebody, for god's sake.  

I've been residing here on Planet Surrey for nigh on 10 years and am in dire need of a relief crew.

My husband is also looking for someone to relieve me, by-the-way (no smutty jokes at the back, this is a serious matter) as we're splitting up, and, being a man, he can't be expected to last more than a day outside a relationship.  He's a very nice man, intelligent, loyal, very practical around the house and tall.  Send me a note if you're interested and I'll pass it on.

Anyway, I digress.  Actually, I'm hoping to digress to Nice, where we (I) have long been planning to relocate.  This was supposed to be in a matter of years, when my husband would take early retirement, but since we've recognised that our marriage is long redundant, I may as well go early.

Surrey is something else.  I wish it was somewhere else, preferably where I wasn't.  I landed in a cloud of love, hope and optimism when I met my husband (he wasn't my husband at the time, nor anyone else's - highly unfashionable I know, but I have to be honest) but didn't really factor in what living on another planet would be like.

For a start, I'm not blond.  Yes, I do have hair, thank you very much, it's just not blond.  I'm not stick thin with long legs, although my legs do actually reach the ground.  Both of them.  Always a plus, I think.  And I don't drive a 4-wheel vehicle, either.  (Although our car does possess 4 wheels if you count the one in the boot).

I've never been able to make conversation with Surrey women.  Actually, I'm not sure they converse in sentences, it's more in mews and purrs and looks of disdain (or are they only directed at me?)  When my son started his new school here, having moved up from Sussex, I encountered weeks, if not months, of disdainful looks at  my pitiful appearance - dear reader, I was wearing...I don't quite know how to tell you this...clothing of the sort people wear in the 21st century!  There, I've done it.  No wax jacket for me, not a riding boot in sight, no pink stripey shirt tucked into spray-on skin-tight beige slacks.  (Perhaps this is why Surrey women have pinched lips and a pained expression all the time?)  No, I look what I would term 'normal': colourful high street pieces teamed with ballet pumps, big jewellery, fashionable bags.  All enveloped with delicious ironic comfort in a rusty Saab, the arty intellectual vehicle of choice.

Anyway, I haven't got a daughter named Arabella, Clavinova, or Anaglypta, Dyspepsia or Swarfega for that matter, and even if I did have, she wouldn't be blond.  And my husband doesn't work in the City (ha!  Nor do theirs any more!) and I know lots of things about the world that aren't related to shopping.  (Actually, I know rather a lot about shopping, but don't tell them that).  So what is there to talk about with Surrey women?

But those days, the days of not talking about anything to Surrey women whilst being on the receiving end of their looks of disdain, are numbered.  I have an interview in two weeks with the Headmaster of a school in Nice, and we'll see what that brings.

Beam me up, Frenchy!  My engines cannae take Surrey no more...