On presents

When I was small, there wasn't much money knocking around amongst our family and friends, and I think this is why we used to be given a lot of sweets: 'proper' presents were limited to Christmas and birthdays. (This situation was much to the advantage of our local dentists as no visit to the drilling chamber was complete without a filling or two in those days.)

I can vividly remember the overwhelming excitement of Christmas morning when we would have both a stocking and a sackful of presents. The Christmas of 1974 was particularly notable, when I received an Action Man jeep and Wol, my brother, got a tank (also for Action Man. Not a real one.) As we got older and started to be given pocket money, so we could buy ourselves small toys but one still had to wait for Christmas or a birthday for something as significant as, say, a skateboard or a bike.

But as one gets older and has more money, so the emphasis of presents changes. By the time I went to university, my brother - still at school and with a Saturday job - had more disposable income than me but I could still bring him home a bucketload Christmas joy because of the access I had to David Bowie bootlegs via the chap who sold tapes in the student union.

It was during this period that I really started to enjoy present buying. I realised that the best presents are not the expensive ones but those that are imaginative and thoughtful, that give the recipient and real thrill. The presents that I like giving and, actually, receiving are not those that have a big price attached to them but those that show some thought. (Not that I think I'm particularly alone in that.)

I was really pleased with some of the presents I gave this year - the George Cole book for my dad; the box of Kev Cummins photos of the Smiths for my brother; the Instagram fridge magnets for the Minx - and I think these cufflinks are the present that I was most thrilled to receive.

When I lived at the previous cottage, there were two trees in the field behind the cottage that I particularly loved (and which featured on this blog several times). The Minx took a thin branch from one of the trees, cut two small disks from it, and commissioned these cufflinks. As you will have guessed, I'm absolutely delighted by them.