Sniffy Advent: Day, the second

Shopping with Connie (awwww, bless her) is one of those Christmas traditions that I both enjoy and endure. In recent years, since moving back into the family home, I've always managed to get most of my presents bought by the second week of December. Internet shopping, late night opening, good ranges of stocking fillers at the supermarkets, having TKMaxx on the doorstep here; they're all really useful in providing a relatively pain-free experience...

...Until Mother mentions, somewhere around the evening of the 20th of December, "Oh, I haven't bought a thing yet, I've just not had time and I don't know my way around the shops." (she's retired). So, after an hour and a half of queuing on the roads of Barton and Trafford, after fights in car parks, we find ourselves in the Trafford Centre (big massive hell-hole shopping centre on outskirts of Manc).

Things are generally really nice, lovely in fact: we wander round Debenhams, Marks's, Selfridges, smelling the latest fragrances, looking at the lovely things; we do really well in finding things that we think people will like.

But there's one thing that always causes trouble: my fucking brother! He always asks for something that is simply impossible to source in any real shop; this can be a CD, DVD, particular make/type of jeans. This is when panic sets in, Mum enters headless chicken mode and insists on going into every single shop in the entire shopping centre, asking bemused assistants for the weird request of my stupid brother then berating them when they haven't got it.

Added to the experience is the heat in these places. It being December and fucking freezing outside, you wrap up warm. But all the shops are super-heated and Mother gets a sweat on. I ask if I can carry her coat for her, but she is so focussed on searching (but not finding), that she carries on.

Things become fraught. Mother's limp worsens, she gets hotter and hotter. I fall to the floor and beg her to give up, saying that I'll look for it online and that my brother will just have to wait, but it's his own fault for being a dick and not asking for normal things - the tosser. Admitting defeat, but relieved, we give up the search and go somewhere for a nice coffee and a sit down.

Of course, at this point my poor mum is exhausted and very hot, but the car is a furthest possible point from where we are. I take her to the car park and make her wait while I go fetch the car, she has to sit behind me because she has difficulty in getting into the passenger side.

My mum is an elderly lady and this makes me sad.

But it doesn't stop her annoying the fuck out of me.

I was a good girl and made her come to TKMaxx with me last night. It was nice and quiet there and she had a good nosy around, bought some nice nick-nacks for people. I think she enjoyed it and I may take her for the big shop next week, time permitting.