The Visitation.

You will be pleased to hear that I survived the visit from Mum and Dad.

Just. I came very close to a sticky, sticky end once or twice.

They turned up at lunchtime as promised. We went out to lunch, which was fine. Then Vic (and I almost murdered her on the spot for this) suggested that we all go to the Mall at Cribbs Causeway for a bit of shopping.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The Mall on a Saturday afternoon. One of my worst nightmares, second only to the one where I'm being eaten alive by oompah loompahs. It was busy. Very busy. No, I should clairfy that. I wouldn't want you to miss out on the full horror of the experience. It was really f*cking busy.

Still, Dad didn't want to be there either. So we followed the girls around, mmmm-ing and aahhhh-ing at the appropriate moments. We were there for four hellish hours before it was decided that we should go home.

After a cuppa at home, Mum announced that she needed to watch something on the telly. It was then that I discovered that there was, indeed something worse than Most Haunted Live. Yes, I was subjected to Strictly Come Dancing. An hour of watching celebrities dance badly, being egged on by Bruce Bloody Forsythe. And as if that wasn't bad enough, at the end he decided to perform a duet with non other than Donny Osmond.

It was around this time that I seriously contempleted suicide. The oompah loompas were actually looking quite attractive.

To be fair, though, Mum played nicely. the subject of Christmas never came up. She didn't use the word 'Misery' once and (the Mall and Strictly Come Dancing notwithstanding) we had quite a nice day.