Readers of Douglas Adams novel "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" will know exactly what I'm talking about. This morning we had the long-awaited delivery of our new sofas. read more...

We have had a good day today, finally getting to the shops to consolidate our thoughts on buying the big items. We started at Baby Unique in Stockport and have pretty much decided to go for the Savannah set - cotbed, wardrobe and dresser to start with. read more...

We have bought a car. It's a Peugeot 206 SW. read more...

To finally, once-and-for all answer the question of how we should shop, and because we needed some vegetables, we went to the market. Very satisfied with our 13 quid bag of fruit and veg we got home and had an inevitable moment of wondering how that compares with Tescos or Northern Harvest for that matter and you can guess what happened next: Bolton Market£13. read more...

Our good intentions shopping-wise have for some time involved getting much of our big grocery shopping delivered by Tesco and topping up on fresh veg from the market (or sometimes Asda. ) Anyway as the market stuff is always way tastier than the supermarket and far cheaper we thought some kind of hybrid between the two would be ideal - online ordering of freshly grown real food. read more...

The other day we made our annual winter pilgrimage to the Trafford Centre - which was pretty successful and we got a good few things ticked off our lists. We did have one or two little ulterior motives including a quick visit to the new Apple Store. read more...

As part of our general domestic regime we have a habit of using Tesco's online shopping service - as it is cheaper than Sainsburys (yes we have been anal and tried doing an identical shop and it worked out about 30 quid more expensive). Despite this, Tesco have committed one cardinal sin; the sheer volume of carrier-bags they see fit to provide us with is just crazy. read more...

We've got a tree. We've got baubles. read more...