Gothick

For years Granny has lived with the colour pink. Pink dresses, hats, bedrooms, barbie dolls. She still does when it comes to Beloved Granddaughters 2 and 3. Beloved Granddaughter number 1 is something else. Granny and Beloved visited Beloved Daughter this weekend; black is now the new pink; long black skirt, big black boots, black tee-shirt - latter, mercifully, not sporting Dracula or skull and crossbones. Yet. 'I am a Goth,' proclaims Beloved Granddaughter no 1. She has not, so far, painted her lips and eyes black, or whitened her face, but given that "Gothic makeup" figures on her Christmas wish list, this transformation of her beautiful creamy skin cannot be far behind. The piercings and black hair dye she is unlikely to achieve; it is much more within parental control, and Beloved Granddaughter is not entirely unrealistic. Her mother groans. 'Well I suppose it's better if she gets through this at the age of nine, not fifteen,' she says.

Granny herself is lumbered with trying to acquire as Beloved Granddaughter's Christmas present what she calls a 'poor boy cap' (her watching 'Bleak House', may explain that.) No prizes for guessing what colour it's got to be.