Family Values

Oh the joys of living in the middle of London and haing country bumpkins for a family.

What it actually means is that once in a while, all too often for my liking, they have the urge to come to the smoke.

I should explain that they're not my family, it's my boyfriends tribe and, being Irish [Northern], there are bleedin' loads of them.

Now it's fine for me, I lived over there for years, so I speak the lingo, but it can be just a tad wearing having to translate almost every utterance .e.g "nadinadinadina thefuk" -"twenty pints of Stella and a bag of plain crisps please".

Translation is though only the tip of the iceberg. Northern Ireland's cost of living is only slightly higher than Albania. Thus, the relatives turn up over here complete with £50 and expecting to have a high old time. Mmmm!

Today we took them out for lunch [truth to tell, I didn't get home from work until after2amm and had a couple of tins and a quick sniff so lunch was the last thing I wanted to do]. They eat like wild dogs, drink like fish [but we both like a wee tad drink so I can't beat them with that stick] and the whole conversation is peppered with "Fuk" every other work in fact. Now I can swear with the best of them but fuk me....

They go back on Tuesday and, despite the non-to subtle hints today, I am not driving them to Stanstead.