There is a reason, having completed one full year in the capital, why the Christmas trips home by London's most recent from-the-home-counties emigres start to get shorter and shorter.
Post that first 12 months, with a full two weeks of party season hangovers to sweat out, the prospect of doing so in one's childhood bed with home-cooked meals every three hours and (clean) kitchen cupboards stuffed full of the sort of treats that would, the rest of the year round, be stuffed on the way home from Sainsbury's Local seems an enticing one.
