Christmas presents: Hubby the happily snorfling sea lion has found out how to surprise me – Susan Morrison

He has been looking at his phone a lot and snorfling in a sort of mild triumph. It's like sharing the living room with a happy sea lion.

Susan Morrison's other half has been making noises like a sea lion as he hunts for her Christmas present (Picture: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Other women would fear the worst. An affair? A gambling habit? No. In this case, it means one thing. He’s hunting my Christmas present. I can always tell. He turns a bit furtive, even coy.

The idea is that I should not notice the effort he’s putting in to secretly buying the right gift, but that I should be very aware of the effort etc, etc.

Waste of secrecy. He always hides them in the same place.

When you’ve spent more than three decades together, surprising each other becomes a challenge, although I did startle him a few weeks back when he opened the front door to find a digger in the garden. To be fair to me, I expected the landscapers the week after.

It was easier when you were a kid. You wrote a letter to Santa, and mum knew exactly what to get from the toy department. We used to send the letters up the chimney but one memorable year we needed to call out the fire brigade because we’d actually set it alight.

Adults are supposed to guess what the other adults want. It's fun, at the beginning. Those first Christmases together, remember? Why, you see young couples today doing just what we did all those years ago. They’re looking in windows. She is pointing. He is nodding. He looks pleased.

Well done, young man, I always want to say. In five years’ time you’ll be up here on Christmas Eve trying to get an Athletes Foot Powder gift set, which is what my husband gave me the year before he gave me the hair removal cream.

So, he’s on a mission. I await with bated breath. Actually, he has found the secret of surprising me. I have no idea what he thinks I want. I don’t really care. It's nice that he’s thinking of me.

And me? What have I bought him? A total crackjacker of a gift. Total.

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