The last 24 hours

Last night the bairn stayed at his Grandma's. This was arranged so we could go out shopping today without him. Like any nine-year-old boy, shopping for clothes is not an ideal way of spending the day. We have been meaning to decorate his room, so Becky decided she would start last night. Before anyone thinks I am being lazy by letting her do all the work, I have a very good reason for not helping her. The smell of paint makes me very nauseous. I have tried masks in the past and they don't work for me and as Becky loves decorating, I think we have an ideal arrangement. My job was to move furniture and keep her supplied with cups of tea. I have to report I did my job admirably. With just a small amount of the room left to paint, we ran out of the stuff. Very frustrating, however, we knew we could get some more mixed. We eventually got to bed at 3am.

The alarm sounded at 9am, and - quite naturally - neither of us felt like responding by jumping up out of bed. We did do well in the end and managed to get into the car by 10.30, went off to B&Q, got some paint, and then drove to Meadowhall Shopping Centre at Sheffield. The reason for our expedition was to buy Becky a new dress. She has recently completed a science based access course at Hull College and on Tuesday evening she is being presented with her certificate during a ceremony at Hull University. My way of saying well done is to buy her a new frock for the occasion. We have previously trawled the shops in Hull, but our efforts have been in vain. If you can't find anything at Meadowhall, you are not going to find it anywhere else.

How difficult can it be to find a suitable dress? Very! We saw one we both liked, but encountered the usual problem; none were available in her size. We then went on to wear ourselves out and really didn't find anything we liked, so we went back to the previous shop and asked if there was one available in her size loitering in the back of the shop. There wasn't. We were then asked if we lived locally. We told them we had travelled from Hull, and the assistant got on the phone to the Hull branch and it transpires they have the same dress in Becky's size! We had spend hours walking around a shopping centre when we could have bought the dress in Hull after all.

I foolishly thought our shopping trip was over, but of course we had to 'accessorise.' Thankfully it did not take us long to find the shoes and handbag to go with the dress.

I thought I would give you this glimpse into my life to prove that not everything revolves around politics. I thought I would also put in print and publish my congratulations to Becky. She has worked very hard, through some difficult circumstances to achieve what she has done and I am very proud of her. She is starting a BSc (Hons) degree at Leeds in September and I am sure all my readers wish her the best of luck.