Pidgin English

I was reading a book the other day. I do that occasionally. In it the protagonist says she is 'making a mental note' to do something.

This bugs me. If I say to myself 'I am making a mental note of this', it is equivalent to my saying 'I am going to forget entirely about this.' If I don't write it down, and put it in my phone with 3 reminders heralding its imminent necessity, it's just gone. It might be saved by a well-placed post-it note but otherwise, that ship has sailed. It was just a waste of perfectly good thought energy.

Another thing bugs me about this book, which is written by a Canuck. (A book by a Canuck!) It's an enjoyable novel, though inhabited by fairly repugnant characters, and set in 1950s England. The protagonist is an 11-year-old female, whereas the author is an adult Canadian male. What annoys me is not the unpleasant characters, nor the fact that an adult man is channelling a prepubescent girl, but the fact that a Canadian is trying to 'speak' English. He doesn't do too badly, really, but I can't relax while reading the book. I don't feel comfortable in his hands.

Which makes me wonder how I write. I know I never picked up an English accent during my 17 years residing in the country but my writing is a different story (so to speak). When I reread something I've composed, it sounds neither fully US nor fully UK, and it's certainly not Canadian (or is it? Who knows, eh?). Do I make my readers (the few of them out there) feel uncomfortable in my hands?

Toodle-pip for now.