Buying birthday presents is a bridge too far - Fiona Duff

The other day I was wondering what to buy my mother for her birthday. I mean she’s going to be 93 at the weekend and there’s not much to get someone that age.

American Bridge Players at Melville Bridge Club

She likes chocolate, but frankly eats far too much of it although I doubt you really care too much about your teeth at that age. In fact she’s pretty lucky to have most of them still stuck to her gums.

Anyway, I remembered her saying that she sometimes finds buttons quite fiddly to do up, so I went along to Marks and Spencer and bought her a couple of pull on tops. I then found myself in the food hall so I picked up a hoisin duck wrap for my lunch. Job done.

Present buying can sometimes be a bit of a problem with some people. There are those who can easily buy anything they might want, they just whip out the American Express without a bat of an eyelid. Then those, like my daughter whose birthday is later in the month, who says she doesn’t any more “stuff”. However, she’s moving house soon so I just got her a voucher for B&Q – she can buy whatever she wants.

I know that my friends think I am a nightmare to find a gift. It’s not that I have a handy AmEx and unlimited funds and my main activities are dog walking and playing bridge. For the past couple of years they couldn’t even buy me some posh playing cards as I’ve been doing in on bridgebase.com. Of course, we have to have zoom on another device so we can chat away and give each other jip when they play badly.

That maybe why I have bathroom cabinets full of potions and lotions - which saves me a lot during the year. Last year my husband arranged for me to have some golf lessons. Mainly so he can spend the next few years buying me golf clubs, tartan trousers and some Pringle jumpers.

Hopefully I’ll be good enough to go on a course while I can still remember which way to go.