OK... panic (almost) over...

...The Christmas shopping had been done almost a week earlier... the last work shift before Christmas Day was over, and I was on the way home, when AAAAAAAAAARGH!

Memory resurfaced - I'd forgotten one of the most important pressies - the one for my Mum!?! OH HELL!!!

So, last minutes shopping hell for me - again. Sigh. you'd think I'd've learnt my lesson on this from ages part (well, the last 46 years of my live, actually), wouldn't you?

Yeah, right, and if you believe that, I've a bridge that I want to sell to you...!

Anyhow, it wasn't actually as painful as the above makes out; we've a family tradition here that my folks are positively absolutely and most definitely the most awkward on the planet to secure presents for.

So, we pass the buck writ large, and leave it to them to decide what they want.

As the advert for car insurance says, "Simples *squeak*".

Well... not quite.

Generally, they drop completely obscure hints all over the place that everyone misses, then give up and tell each other what they want, and then shop for each others pressies, and pass them about for us to give to them on the day.

Only this year, there was a miscommunication, communications failure, fubar, screwup, or the planets got misaligned somehow (...Allegedly, Patrick Moore's still trying to explain how Mars got put into Saturn's orbit...), but the end of the cock-up was that my Mum's pressie, well, the major bit of it, got missed.

Oh

Hence the last minute dash into Bromley (bugger Croydon, I'd seen what that place was like earlier, driving me damned bus, and the word "Mental" only scratched the surface!), so, Bromley it was, at 4pm. One hour to the shops closing....

I accomplished the task, end to end, in - wait for it - three quarters of a bloody hour.

45 minutes.

It's a sodding record!

Me Great Hunter! YAH!


Weeeeeeeeeell... not quite.

The Great Hunter was actually led by his tracker (Dad, over the phone), who told me what to get, and where to get it, and the expected price. He was right on all three counts.

I'll never hear the bloody end of it, most likely. Well, until the end of Christmas Day, when I can retreat - I mean 'tactically withdraw in contact' - back home again, anyhow!

And the moral of this story?

I'm doing ALL my Christmas Shopping on bleedin' Amazon next year. Saves a mile of grief, writ large!

Merry Christmas!