This year there was even an annual holiday in her honour.

It started so well, I managed to find a card with the words "Happy Birthday To My Special Fiancée" which wasn't as easy as you might think.

What's more it was a real bargain and I picked it up for just 89 of your English pence (don't worry, she knows already because as usual I left the price sticker on the back).

Her present proved much trickier. She's got three of everything she needs and the stuff she wants I couldn't afford without putting a pair of her tights over my head and robbing the nearest bank.

So I went for the easy option and showered her with little presents. One of these was a "Teach yourself Spanish" course for her Nintendo DS Lite.

This was a mistake. A big mistake.

It works on voice repetition so all week she's been parroting inane phrases in Spanish. In bed when I'm trying to snore. When I'm trying to watch the footy on the telly. It's driving me, er, loco.

For a while, I did try and humour her and ask what new phrase she had just learned.

But the final straw came when she said to me: "Un pastor alemán me mordío en la pierna izquierda."

"What does that mean?" I asked naively.

"A German shepherd has bitten my left leg," she replied with the self-confidence of the genuinely insane.

"Great, I said, "you're now officially irritating in two languages."

I've got my own back though. I booked our holiday for next year. In Italy. As my friends in Fletton would agree, that's got to be "capace di far ridere."*

* I'm reliably informed that translates as "good for a laugh". Don't blame me, if it doesn't, I have enough trouble with the English language.

Centre half and a social commentator
Man United star Nemanja Vidic got himself in hot water for moaning about Manchester and its wet weather. He reportedly claimed the city's main attraction was the train station "where trains leave for other rainy cities".

He got more grief for claiming us Brits don't enjoy life enough, saying: "They work so hard and only talk to people at lunch. In the evening they get home and watch the telly so they can get up early for work."

I'm just amazed that a pampered Premiership star and a foreigner to boot has got us ordinary folk sussed so well.

He's not as daft as he looks. And maybe if he's sick of the rain, he should sign for Posh and find a nice place in sunny Wittering.

As the ET revealed tonight, it was the sunniest place in England last month with 107whole hours of sun. Wow!