The princess and the pea sized memory.

"Oh the tyranny of pink," sighed a mother I know.

'I steer her towards other colours and she just runs to pink," said another.

"She was doing so well in blues and blacks, and then her friends got to her," said another.

"I'm just trying to enjoy the time when I can insist on grey and red," said another, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

"Ummmm, but hang on a minute," I said, to this last mother, who's been a friend for some years, "what happened when you met your husband only, ummm...three or four years ago? Don't I remember your new fiance, after quite a few months in your tasteful - er, what shall call it? boudoir of powder um..skin tones, with it's sweet fairy flower lights in an array of - what shall we call them- pastel colours and with your ..er, Morroccan tea rose silk bedspread and your, um, cherry muslin window drapes? Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, after quite a few months in your boudoir didn't he finally pluck up the courage in a heart - to -heart (after he had pledged his entire life and wordly goods to you) and admitted that he wasn't sure he could stand sleeping in a um, Moroccan tea rose shaded bedroom for the rest of his life? And you, I seem to remember, looked on his request quite cooly, almost coldly, some might say, and finally, after talking it through, while drinking rose with girl friends, conceded that possibly the fairy lights might be removed to the sitting room for christmas and that maybe the wall that was mainly wardrobes could have a little taupe?

Best enjoy pink aged four, I reckon.