I do not jest. In years gone by, I gritted my teeth as I staggered round the shops with my merry load of gifts and festive fayre. The novelty of browsing for special gifts for that special someone, began to wear a tad thin after hours of trekking through shopping precincts and department stores. It was tiring, trawling the small boutiques and quaint, out-of-the-way shops that stock that something-a-little-bit-different, whilst accompanied by a few thousand other people, bent on the same task. Shopping was a mixture of fun, tinged with exhaustion as I remember it, when the children were small. A trip to Argos to pick up that longed for…