When my work colleagues told me the date of this year’s Black Friday, I thought “SHIT”. I had already planned to visit Clarks Village, with Claire and her parents, to do Christmas shopping, on that day. I envisaged the small town of Street, where Clarks Village is based, being awash with tens of thousands of bargain hunters, all fighting over a half price pair of jeans in Next.

Luckily, my worries about Black Friday were unnecessary. Street was relatively quiet and I enjoyed a nice walk around the shops. This is some statement for me, as I usually hate shopping. There are many things in life which I prefer to shopping, which include having a filling at the dentist and unblocking the toilet with my bare hands. Street was nice, though, and I ended up buying some good presents for other people… and some treats for myself from the Cadbury store and Body Shop!

Halfway through our shopping trip, we went into Pizza Express for lunch. This is always a popular place to go. After all, who doesn’t like pizza? The food was as amazing as always, but the cleanliness of the seating area left a lot to be desired. What appeared to be tomato sauce was smeared all over the table, where I was sat, and up the wall. It was as if there had been a pizza fight. I should have really said something to the waiter, but was feeling all Christmassy, so let it go. I was also too embarrassed to get my mobile phone out and take a photo.

The vast majority of my shopping has been done online. Amazon has done very well indeed from me this year – their shares have no doubt rocketed. This has resulted in loads and loads of parcels being delivered over the past few days. I am sure the poor chap who delivers my packages, hates me right now. I think I annoyed Claire a bit too, as she has days off in the week, due to working night and weekend shifts, so had her rest disturbed by frequent bangs on the door from delivery men.

Now all my shopping is complete, I’ve got the unpleasant task of wrapping the gifts I have bought. I don’t know why, but I am totally useless at wrapping. When I hand presents out on Christmas morning, it looks like they’re from the dog. Claire, on the other hand, along with most women, wrap gifts perfectly. Basically, women can wrap presents, men can’t. I have no idea why that is. Clearly something to do with evolution.