Do not do your Christmas shopping in Borders. It is miserable.

Two things. First thing, marvellous search engine terms that people have used to find my blog (why, yes, I am quoting directly from the wordpress dashboard – I am tired. I have just cleaned the bathroom) – ‘kittens in Littleport uk’ and ‘ur like a monkey on a mangle’. I fear both of these searchers would have been quite disappointed. Second thing, why do I, every bloody year, end up on my Christmas shopping trip in Borders, hyperventilating at the queue and afflicted with a sudden realisation of the pointlessness of twenty-first century materialism? I feel like when they keep ending up in that bar in Police Academy. So, readers, be warned and do not do as I did. Borders have anticipated anything you might ever want to buy and hidden it. Go to Waterstones instead (or better still you should have done it already on Amazon, for those of us who are not boycotting Amazon for reasons which are entirely opaque and incomprehensible to anyone born after 1960. You know who you are.)