Little Madam is growing up.

We’ve just got home from Durham Airport (formerly Teesside Airport, but it’s considered to be a bit more glamourous to allude to Durham than Middlesbrough. After all, in Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson didn’t write, “If you have never been to Middlesbrough, go at once. Take my car. It’s wonderful“) where we have handed Little Madam over to the care of? her much-doting grandparents. They are off to another small island in the Mediterranean for a week.

Readers who know Darling Wifey’s mother will understand when I say that grandma’s standards had not slipped; Little Madam was expected to be presented at the airport in her new travelling clothes, with her hair done just so and plenty of reading matter (so she won’t distract grandma from the important matter of Looking Good and Creating a Good Impression.)

Little Madam looked every inch the glamourous, jet-setting ingenue. (God help Mr Darcy when she finds him.)