I'm not difficult. I'm just, well, picky...

Are you stuck for something to get me for my impending birthday? Sure and who isn't, alannah. According to my sister, I am the most difficult person to buy for EVA, a statement which is always accompanied by very overdramatic waving of limbs and rolling of eyes.

Sheesh.

Every year for Christmas and my birthday, she (and Mam... and Himself...) demand that I draw up a big list of Things I Would Like To Receive As Presents, from which they will randomly choose bits and bobs so there is still some element of surprise.

Sometimes this works well. Sometimes it doesn't, like last Christmas when Himself and The Sister both presented me with tubs of Bobbi Brown creamy concealer and were not happy bunnies. Have to say, I didn't mind getting the same pressie from the pair of them and was only delighted with my year's supply of World's Greatest Concealer. And sometimes it descends into a bit of a farce, like when Mam insisted that I give my list over the phone this year and made me spell "Stieg Larsson" about a hundred times because the line was bad. Or when The Sister asked if I'd go with her to River Island when she was getting the laptop bag to make sure there were no little defects on the specimen she bought, or when she made me try on my birthday present (black one-shouldered sequinned party frock) last weekend to see if it fit/I liked it because the window of return-ity would be closing before my birthday rocked around.

In fairness, though, the fit of the dress wasn't 100%. And I wasn't cracked about it. And about the laptop bag... weeeell, I have been known to get obsessed about minor faults with things. Like, I have a Karen Millen skirt that has a fairly teeny tiny spot of a red wine stain on it, but when I put it on, all I can see is that stain.

So, er, maybe she just knows me too well.

Anyway, this all meant I mostly got gift vouchers or cash over Christmas, which as far as I'm concerned are the poifect presents. Regardless of what Himself or the Dilbert strip have to say about it.