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A Cautionary Tale

Tiresias

Nordic Pine
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This may seem to be very specific advice, but I’m sure it is universal (please tell me it is…)

Don’t drive down to your Borders bolt hole, looking forward to two weeks isolation and relaxation. Unload all the goodies.

And realise you have left all (yes, all) your partner’s presents back in Edinburgh.

A suggestion that ‘well, you can get them after Hogmanay, it’s all the same really’ was not received favourably. I don’t know how shrift is measured (by length presumably), but this was on a sub-atomic level. Return trip required.

And I apologise to the elderly couple in the Civic who I passed at a speed well in excess of the Defender’s design maximum. I was as scared as you were.

I have only just caught up on the food prep. And the gags have only just started.

Ho ho ho.
 
Oooooh, bloody hell........

Mind you, it is self-inflicted. You started the problem years ago by allowing the expectation of presents to develop. I'm way ahead of you, although the route to this happy position has not always been smooth.
 
Surely a trip to the nearest service station to pick up an oversize Cadburys dairy milk and some last legs flowers would have dug you out of the hole :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Oh dear :(

If your partner is anything like my missus then forgetting the presents will go down in the "Grand Book of Misdemeanours". Written in blood. Yours. :lol:
 
'rendous. Bad luck.

My extremely fortunate wifey always gets the choice of present. I always find our women appreciate such thoughtfulness.

This year she was able to choose between the tool she wants (she is my assistant after all), a cooking implement she wants - she does not cook, but she eats what I produce - and usually rates it out of 10 (unsolicited criticism), or a very nice shower tray that she can treasure.
 
AJB Temple":2inex6hq said:
I always find our women appreciate such thoughtfulness.

Like your style AJB.

I bought my partner 2 new tyres for her car one year, didn't really get the reaction I thought was appropriate for my consideration!

We now have a very simple arrangement in our house, she gets what she wants when she wants it, I get what I want when she says I can have it. :cry:
 
In over forty years of marriage, I can count the presents I've bought SWIMBO (Christmas and birthdays) on the fingers of one hand; she doesn't do surprise gifts - Rob
 
This has been fine-tuned over the past nearly 49 years. :o

Whatever I buy – just not right.
Do not buy jewellery, perfume or any other smelly stuff.
Don’t even contemplate clothing.

On a business trip to Salisbury Rhodesia (that’s how long ago) I bought some handmade silver and ivory earing-studs and necklace for her birthday.
Did not appreciate the old bone.

She now buys Turkish Delight, Nougat or whatever appeals the taste.
I then wrap it up, write out a card, insert a whole lot of cash which is then used to buy what she wants.
Done and dusted.

My needs are very simple. Either a Kg Cashews, some slabs of dark chocolate and maybe some cash.
The cash goes into a stack in the cupboard which is then used to buy …………….. tools! :D 8-)

Birthdays are treated the same Christmas.
 
Buying your loved one a present is fraught with risk unless you are lucky to have one who is sensible and tells you what to buy- my Pam falls into this category thank goodness, otherwise it’s either very practical things that we know she needs (yes tyres made me remember something best forgotten) or its more ephemeral and it is very doubtful if it’s right.
It can be very difficult being a man sometimes.
Ian
 
Missus got her own back with the pressies this year. 2 years ago I gave her a BBQ, last year a set of saucepans, this year a new pair of walking boots. Yesterday I got a mini compost bin for the kitchen with activated charcoal filters. :)

Hope you all got what you deserved yesterday. ;) :)
 
:lol: :lol: No sympathy, you have to start as you mean to go on.
We don't buy each other presents and an agreement not to buy cards though I did get into hot water by taking that literally on our 25th aniversary so lesson learned for the 50th. :?

Women just don't forget :eusa-naughty:

I sat through a program on TV last night called The Wheel, something I wouldn't normally watch but had to laugh when Peter Crouch (ex footballer) one of the contestants had an altercation with his wife one of the "celebrities". He didn't buy me any presents one year she says, I must have was the reply, no you didn't, not a single present and I bought you loads. You could see she was irritated and he was squirming. ...and what's more when he does buy he gets me the same Berbery coat every year.... Well I did 3 years running ....EVERY YEAR she says blowing a kiss. :?

It was the only entertaining bit of the prog, I was in stitches :lol:
 
Peter Crouch is quite funny. He came out with one of my favourite lines when he was asked "what would you be if you hadn't met Abby?" His instant response "A Virgin".

He's about 6 ft 13 and ungainly. They make a fun couple.
 
Thank you for all your suggestions. Believe me, there isn’t a single one I didn’t run up the flag pole (ironic phrase, I don’t speak like that). Including ‘delivery services, huh?’ and a series of hand drawn and whimsical tokens to be redeemed at a future date. Getting back in the car was the easier option.

All I have to do now is put up with people inspecting my neck – ‘just checking your head is fastened on, wouldn’t want you to forget it’, and reciting Lewis Carroll poems about wearing your trousers rolled.

So the julbord was 15 minutes late. I can live with that. You can’t rush a good Janssons frestelse.

And Roger, in the Grand Book of MIsdemeanors I'm probably on Vol. XII now. Although personally I don't see what is wrong with saying 'Don't wait up, I'll be late back', and turning up three days later after an impromptu trip to Aberdeen. Or having a kip on the top of the lift shaft of the Church of Scotland building. All perfectly normal.
 
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