christmas is coming.

For us in the UK, the first warning of Christmas ,starts roughly at the end of August.
When the first catalogues   slip through the door.
I used to get such nice tempting ones years ago, featuring expensive high heeled shoes, wonderful underwear, expensive gold stuff, and i could leave the pages open to give a little Christmas hint....

but suddenly things have changed, and someone has taken note of my middle age, all i seem to get these days are tarten slippers with ring pull zips, man mad fabric trousers with elastic waistbands, ( which are becoming more temptingly comfy every year) and underwear that promises to scoop everything up, and pop it from were it came from.

my husband thought it was all very funny, until it became personal, when one arrived addressed personally to him, and was greeted with horror.
A smiling picture of a 70 year old man, on a motorized shopping scooter, and the caption,
' dear 'hubby', you too can enjoy shopping again with out all your normal aches , pains and discomfort'!!


oh, how I laughed...........until my 20% coupon for a box of tena lady came through the door.
I have seen the ads on telly, and I do not understand them, what is so funny about tena lady?,
why are they laughing so uncontrollably while pissing themselves?
does tenna lady have some happy drugs imprinted on to it?.............if it did I would take up the 20% coupon!


anyway , am drifting from subject, going back to Christmas, and the start of the never ending, and quite futile hunt for celebration food for the food allergic, something egg/nut/yeast/free, and not so bland and tasteless that the outer packaging can chewed with greater relish.

I look for a safe Christmas cake , Scottish shortbread tail biscuits with out traces of nuts on petticoat tails, Christmas tree chocolates without hazelnut puree.........

having got 4 kids, and a couple of part time jobs, finding the time to cook, shop/ shop/ shop/wrap/ look happy/requires a lot of time, and effort........

I  get Christmas eczema about this time, and take care not to waste the level of stress that causes such skin problems, and scatter dry flakes around mainly in the Christmas biscuit tin section of marks and spencer. Its my own from of decorative snow.

and so, I  promise myself  I will spend more time this year cooking, and try to avoid the temptation to search/e-mail/beg for nasty tasteless safe treats.

I can also add, that the underwear that scoops everything back to its original place, does work.
however, although reasonably  priced , it can cause some nasty expensive after effects. a distressing amount of pins and needles in lower limbs can result in accidents when standing after sitting , and wine spilled on a white shirt is not good news, esp when its not your own shirt,......
and later on in the (hellish) evening, you find that the small print requires a further purchase of machinery to get the stuff off your body.
hubby is far too busy with his own version of the one legged trouser dance at the end of the bed....