Papa's bank book wasn't big enough

What transpired yesterday was an absolute miracle. Shockingly so. Yesterday afternoon we completed our Christmas Shopping for the British Family, as last December I vowed we would while we traipsed around nightmarish shopping malls seeking that perfect something for Stuart's dad, and then spent a small fortune sending it all by air. Best of all, all the gifts are excellent, and they're going to be wrapped and packed this week and sent by sea with plenty of time. And it was an altogether pleasant afternoon, in the uncrowded shopping mall. A bit of a waste of a sunny day, but worth it. It was a combination Christmas/Back to School shopping venture, and we got a whole mess of new clothes. Last Fall, we were too poor to buy clothes and the year before that we lived in the land of the pygmy peoples, and as a result, we're even more raggedy than can be expected from people with our lack of fashion sense. No longer however. New jeans, and a replacement hoodie for the one I bought in August 2002, and best of all a wonderful autumn jacket of my dreams, brown with a green cordoroy collar and I have started a matching scarf already. Stuart also got some new clothes, and when we got home we overhauled the closets and Stuart threw away anything he wore in first-year university, as that was in a previous century. And we also cleaned up my desk area for back to school, and now everything is tidy and orderly and there is a choreless weekend straight ahead.