Christmas shopping

In my finest hour of festive preparatory organisation, I once had all of my Christmas presents bought by the end of November. (Actually, it might have been October but that now seems totally unbelievable and, as it was thirteen years ago, I can't honestly remember).

Since then, there have been good years and bad years, although I have often found myself out shopping on Christmas Eve, anyway, supporting my brother's last minute purchasing.

This year has felt like a bad year; even the spreadsheet containing the gift ideas and purchases hasn't been completed. I have been buying bits and pieces but I've been feeling more and more frantic. In the end I decided to take a day off work today to put matters right so that I could relax and enjoy the run up to Christmas.

In preparation for this, last night I got out all the presents I've bought so far and booted up the Christmas spreadsheet. Actually, with everything in one place, I appeared to have bought quite a lot already. I steadily added them onto the list, ensuring that I'd spent roughly the same on each of the children, regardless of the number of presents. And when I'd finished, I found I only had three left to buy!

And so it was that when I woke up Izzy* this morning, I found myself looking forward a day out. We made it down to the Minx's door for 10am and she was completely ready to leave, which meant that I lost our bet and the coffees at Starbucks were on me.

Earlier this year we discovered a place in Manchester where you can park all day for £4.50. It's located underneath the railway tracks and this is what it looks like from the inside.

From here we wandered up to do the shops and had a rather pleasant day, even if there were some protracted periods of looking at clothes, which probably explains why the battery on my 'phone had died by four o'clock!

*That's 1.3 for those of you that prefer muy digital naming convention for my children.