Middle Class

A boyfriend once told me that I was

"middle class with working class aspirations"

- I still get annoyed now, just thinking about it.

Richard had a chauffeur, a part-time housekeeper and a man from Paula Pryke who delivered him a flower arrangement each Friday evening for his marquetry hall table. I looked at him in amazement each time the florist turned up on his door step in Chepstow Road, Notting Hill (long before the film) as regular as clockwork. Richard would dash back from work at London Bridge to ensure he was home for his florist to present him with an enormous arrangement in an oasis. God forbid that his bird of paradise would limpen due to lack of moisture.

That is just not quite 'manly' I think, a chap dashing home for his florist to deliver him fresh flowers for his house. We always ate out on Friday evenings - in Mezzo on Wardour Street, so immediately after the florist delivered, we were off, driven by the chauffeur to the restaurant. I was very fond of Richard - but I just had to say something. It was all just a tad "posh" for me. It just seemed a touch too 'Brideshead revisited'. I playfully asked Richard one Friday if his nanny still lived with his parents, now that he and his brother had left home.

Well, I already told you what he said to me - rather aggressively I might add, and so I bounced out the door and took a taxi home, that was the end of that as far as I was concerned.

Would you believe he sent his chauffeur to my house with his florist and some flowers? I must have hit a raw nerve...... mentioning Nanny. Diddums!