re. terms of endearment: I think shopkeepers in Winchcombe would say "love", but quite a few on the island say "my love", which took me aback at first. The addition of the "my" suddenly made it seem rather more personal.

(For non-British people who find this very odd, there's nothing harrassmenty about it. It's totally unisex - used as much by women to women as by men to women. Whether men would say it to men, though, I don't know.)