A Traditional Christmas in Sunny Plymouth

A very traditional Christmas was had here in Sunny Plymouth this year.

A: The central heating boiler packed up
B: My wife hated all the presents I bought for her
C: All of my presents were too small and didn’t fit (apart from the alcohol)


Yes as predicted by a million TV ads our central heating boiler stopped working on Christmas Eve. I firmly believe that the last time we had it maintained, (around August time) the heating engineer had fitted a small radio controlled device to one of the key parts that would, on a pre arraigned signal, render the boiler inoperable.

While the guy was here in August he had already pointed out that the boiler was in fact obsolete, placed illegally in the kitchen and that flue was also in the wrong place. What we had to do was, buy a new boiler, dismantle the kitchen, put the new one where the cupboards now were, bang a hole through the wall for the new flue and buy a new kitchen to fit around the new replaced boiler. Never the less he gave it a quick dust, fitted the terminator device and left.

So now there we were with an obsolete boiler that wasn’t working on Christmas Eve – perfect!

But help was at hand, I had had the foresight to respond to the million TV ads, (subliminal marketing hey?) and take out the gas boiler insurance with British Gas and by 9:30 Christmas Eve morning there was an engineer replacing a sensor bringing warmth and the ability to have a hot shower before Santa visited to our happy home.

Yes but not for long, come Christmas Day we excitedly unwrapped our presents, and although I has spent time and effort thinking about what to buy my wife, she hated every thing I had bought for her, except for the watch. I had scoured ebay for interesting and exciting presents, like a Diamond (synthetic) tennis bracelet, which I thought were very fashionable at the moment, diamond ear rings (once again synthetic laboratory diamonds which really do look nice and sparkly and aren’t in themselves particularly cheap – but she does also have real diamond earrings I hasten to add) and a very nice skirt bought from M&S which she said she liked when she was trying them on! So I thought at least I was on to a winner on that - duh I'm just a man hey.

Likewise she had bought me a number of nice, trendy fashionable tops, each of them purporting to be my size. Liars liars pants on fires, they were all too small. Unless, of course, these fashionable items are meant to be worn so tight that they actually restrict ones breathing. Maybe its because the men they use for models in the sweat shops of Tiawan are L for Tiawanese men, but are mere dwarfs when measured against us manly men here in the UK?

Also can someone tell me why while the actual item seemed normal enough, despite being on the small size, all of the arms were of the length that would have more suited an orang-utan! The arms of these garments were a good four inches longer than my arms actually were, so I stood there like a largish boy wearing his smaller but older brothers hand me downs with the arms dangling down somewhere near my knees. It was ridiculous, if this is high fashion well called me an old fuddy duddy for wanting the cuffs of my clothing to end somewhere near my wrists!

So my friends a traditional Christmas was had by all and we will continue this tradition by today supporting the annual Christmas Edition of Swap Shop by joining the hundreds of other disgruntled spouses returning unwanted gifts to the shops in town – bliss!