I like to think that when the Mayflower first left Plymouth, its passengers brimming with cheery expectations of the splendid and godly New World they were going to build there, one of the wives - probably one of the pregnant ones, fighting a losing battle with nausea - was looking glumly backwards at the receding coast of Devon, and thinking 'Bugger this for a game of soldiers.'

And possibly, with a hint of bitterness: 'I should've married Samuel Scrote. First bloody Holland, now the Americas... Scrote'd never have left the pig farm. No chance of being killed and eaten by savages there. And I'd have stayed near my mother, anyway.'

And then, reconsidering: 'Well, there's THAT to be said for Virginia.'

We are emigrating to Virginia. It is my husband's idea. He is full of enthusiasm. I am full of trepidation.