Horrors

There were several cringing moments at the wedding festivities yesterday (including the moment when my father realized I had carried out my threat to sign the official register with my nom de plume if I was forced into being one of their witnesses at the last minute in front of a room full of people; or the moment when me and my sister realized we had been left out of his speech at the reception, in which he had thanked every other member of his extended family present, up to and including his stepson's girlfriend and his elder brother's second wife.)

But for me, the most cringing moment had to be when I went back into the kitchens at the reception venue (a local golf club) to supervise the wrapping up of the remains of the wedding cake.

The waitress looked at me slightly strangely. Where are you from then?

For once in my life, the answer was quite truthfully "here". I was puzzled though, because as I spent most of my childhood in the ten miles radius of where we were standing at that moment, I couldn't really explain away the question to regional dialectal differences.

She looked a bit embarrassed. It's just that, she said, your accent... I thought you were American...