New tricks

Jan continues to be intrigued by a neighbour, the woman opposite, as do I. Jan, because the woman is extremely house proud and even brushes clean the street around her house and me because she is very attractive. Jan mentioned the sweeping and I replied by pointing out that cleaning was an old English custom and that cleaning the street was the modern northern equivalent of scrubbing the doorstep. Some habits are just very deeply ingrained.
In the short time that we've been here they have installed new street lighting opposite and this nice lady even swept up after the workmen even though I thought that they'd done a very quick, neat, clean and tidy job.
Jan, who isn't big on cleaning, is fascinated and, as her newest expression is 'Eee ecky thump,' she might just be becoming a true northern person.
She just needs to start sweeping the road around the house, finding a step to scrub and wearing curlers. I'll point her in the right direction.