Mannerisms

'Will they never leave?' Ed writes in a post-Christmas diary entry, 'the wife's mother and sister and  her best friend are still hanging on. Whining, moaning, obsessed with how I should spend the IPO proceeds.'

'The wife wants a house in the South of France because she has a friend with a house in the South of France and doesn't like feeling inferior to her', writes Ed, 'although  she doesn't speak a word of French and is allergic to garlic.'

'The wife's best friend wants me to buy a ski chalet, notwithstanding that I despise skiing as an inferior form of tobogganing.'

'The wife's sister wants me to buy a yacht so we can have family trips over to France, although she knows I hate boats and loathe the sea.'

'The wife's mother wants me to build a granny flat onto the house so she can live with us permanently. Every time she comes here we have  marital bust-ups so having her here permanently would probably mean the end our marriage.'

'Not one person, not one bloody relly, asks me what I'd like to do with it.'

'But I know. I'm buying some top-whack Bordeaux and keeping it where the rellies can't get hold of it.'

'Only 326 days to go and I'll be down in a cellar somewhere opening a bottle of  25 year-old Lafite."