Normally the Lady M and I have finished shopping for people’s Christmas presents by now, but with the chaos of this year we’ve been a bit behind schedule. Today was the day we remedied that.

We targeted Kingston, and with a sort of mental list we descended into the tinsel-strewn maze of shelves and staircases to be found in our favourite haunts. Like most mental lists and battle plans, it didn’t long survive contact with the enemy.

Admittedly we stopped for lunch after filling the first set of bags, but we managed to tear ourselves away after a mere five or so hours of running relays from shops to the car and back.

That’s when we decided to stop in at the local supermarket on the way home for “just a few more bits.”

We may have been a bit punch drunk by this point. I may have babbled at a few people online in the queue; and I’m still not sure why a supermarket employee insisted on showing me a picture of his mate in Lahore who apparently looks a bit like me. He may have been trying to chat me up, but I was too tired to notice or respond. 

Lady M, who had wandered away to grab some batteries, was rather amused, and just mused she literally couldn’t leave me alone for five minutes.

Whoever that was, sorry for not doing more than giving a slightly frozen grin while my eyeballs rotated in their sockets.

But hey, all the Christmas shopping is now done! Well, until payday and the sight of something else shiny, no doubt.

Next year I think we’ll go back to being organised, or at least buying things in smaller batches across the year…