Really worried about Ann...

I've just managed to get away from Ann for a moment and readers, I must confess, I'm extremely uncomfortable. I had of course realised that Ann was something of a 'diamond in the rough' - I'm reminded of Moll Flanders, or the winkle-picker one from Tipping the Velvet - but her behaviour today has been less picaresque and more...dare I say...'pikey'.

Now that's a horrible term, I know, and I wouldn't dream of using it normally. The Riders, as I have mentioned, have a long socialist history - my Great Aunt Geraldine famously donated all but one of her five country estates to the National Trust (she kept Scotland, it was the biggest). I have read widely in Marx and really identified with Tess of the D'Urbevilles, poor duck. But Tess didn't have a Sony XBox. Or a Lacoste sleep suit. Or cold sores. And she probably knew what risotto was (Ann thought it was rice pudding).

I don't mean to complain, it's just the weekend's not going how I thought it was going to at all. Ann "wasn't hungry" this morning when I produced my celebrated Eggs Posie (Eggs Benedict but with garlic mayonnaise instead of Hollandaise - yum!). She wolfed down a Bloody Mary only to sick a little in her hand and scream at me for 'feeding her ketchup', and wasn't calmed until I made her a Nesquik from an old packet I once accidentally bought for Emmeline. And she was palpably uncomfortable at the J. W. Waterhouse exhibition I took her to this afternoon. She didn't even find all the little nymphs pretty - I'm worried we don't have anything in common!

What shall I do? She's busy playing Street Fighter now but she'll have finished this level soon (oh god, I can tell by the music, what's happening to me?) and will be coming out to see if her risotto-replacement pizza is ready. The wedding's tomorrow. Oh god...what if Melody was right?