There is definitely something special about the arrival of spring time.  However overdue or reluctant it feels at the time.   We don an air of fun and expectation ourselves – things have to be brighter than the winter offered, surely?!  This winter in particular has been seriously grim with unbelievably poor weather conditiond throughout most […]

It can be so difficult in the winter months to generate any interest in shopping and retail therapy of any kind.  I tend to stay indoors much of the time and only venture out for a healthy walk a couple of times a week.  My mind cannot cope with the rest of me feeling utterly […]

Boy it’s been a hard winter to date – as far as weather is concerned anyway.  We’ve had the lot.   Torrential rain for weeks, giving way to fog, into sleet and snow.  Then that started to thaw just as the freezing temperatures returned overnight and added to this have been tremendous stormy gust of wind, […]

I was staying with friends for the Christmas break – great fun it was too.  We all seemed to received an inordinate amount of chocolate and scottish shortbread biscuits.    No one used to worry a jot about obesity or heart disease.  We used to try to get rid of all the bad stuff by new […]

When you have to buy a lot of varied things for family and friends at say, Christmas and birthdays, it can be totally overwhelming for the average joe in the street.  I do have chums who have got married and apart form the usual conveniences of that happy state, it also brings the added benefit […]

I have never really been one for traipsing around a crowded shopping mall for christmas gifts.  It seems such an entirely false way of continuing the idea from the three kings and the shepherds!  Theirs were such simple gifts but these days there is an amazing frenzy around the middle of December.  I find my […]

A recent visit to the very south west of the country brought unexpected pleasures in the retail therapy department.  holidaying with the family, a couple of expeditions to the main town were in order.  There was an indoor market unlike anything I’ve visited before – all kinds of stalls selling everything from smart and practical […]

Funny how certain families have sets of birthdays all in one long run – a colleague of mine had all their family birthdays falling between 03 August and 21 October.  Now that is an expensive run.  Of course, not everyone celebrates with gifts, so that side doesn’thave to be too painful.  so starting with the […]

There are many new shopping experiences coming on stream these days.  From out of town designer villages where you can find every imainable style and label ever desired down to a brand new shopping complex developed over what used to be gravel pits and now a very large wildlife country park area – combined with […]

Around my very comfortable family sized house, I see many items that I have carted with me from many other houses before this one – the china egg holder – shaped and painted very realistically like a black and white hen – it’s actually painted like a cockeril, but who cares, it was given to […]