Always and for ever...

On Tuesday, David (Aged 9) and I were in ASDA for our mid-week mini-shop.Noticing a particularly large collection of flowers, David immediately suggested that a large bunch of roses would be an appropriate present for Karen (Wife, Mother & Chief Cook). I explained that the flowers were for valentine's day and it was for lovers, not for parents. I also pointed out that the roses were £30 which was nearly 8 weeks pocket money and Karen would consider it a bit of a waste of money, whether his or mine. (She isn't from Yorkshire but she has a Yorkshire atitude to wasting money, i.e. short arms, deep pockets).

Yesterday morning, I came in to work early in order to oversee a change-over from mains to generator and consequently missed the opening of the cards. As a consequence, Karen had to explain what my pyramid of kisses meant, with the suffix "with tongues..."!

Later in the day, when I picked David up, I suggested we should nip round to a florists in Queen Street and buy a small bunch. He wasn't to keen, especially if it involved going back to ASDA. (He regards shopping as the world's most pointless activity and ' sreelyboring, unless there is something he wants.

Anyway, we ended up at Morrisons Supermarket behind the Town Hall and David immediately gravitated to the sumptious red roses, £29.95 this time. On my rejecting these as being still overly expensive, he chose a small bunch of small sprig of white tiny flowers that are otherwise used as decorative padding in flower arranging. (I don't know what the term for that is but in catering, the word is garnish.) I decided on a bunch of red roses (with garnish) for a more sensible £9.99.

In the meantime, David had noticed a large display of chocolates and champagne nearby and decided that he really, really, needed to buy Mum a box of Thorntons and would happily sacrifice the pocket money for the next three weeks but please could it start the week after as he was off to Myreka* tomorrow and wanted some spends for the gift shop...

(*Eureka is a really good hands-on Children's museum located in Halifax, West Yorkshire).

I looked at the display- Chocolates £10.99, Champagne £23.49, Both together £15, a saving of £19.48. OK I said, the plonk can go on the rack...

Returning back to the car, I explained why I had bought the champagne as well due to the big saving. Now David sometimes struggles with sums, but he had enough nous to realise that if we had saved £19.48 and we went halvies, then his pocked money owed was only £1.25 and if he ate some of them himself we would be quits as he doesn't have to pay for food or drink out of his pocket money...

I explained that life doesn't work like that but I suspect that the pair of us are far too soft to stop the debt out of his pocket money next week.

One downer- whilst Karen was trimming the flowers to arrange in our big vase, she noticed that we had a stem that had been de-headed so that we only had eleven, not twelve. Still eleven roses are good for a few snuggles...