'Harsh, little baby,' smoothed Gilda with all the appropriateness she could mustard. 'We only have a likely more shopping to do deform Christmastide and then we can go home for suffer.'

The department stork was amassed with last-ditch Samaritans trying to lay hands on something wainwright for Uncle Tobias or Auntie Silvia or somebody. 'Excuse me, Misty,' said Gilda to a pressing hardwire clerk. 'Can you tell me where I mighty fine your pots and plans?'

'Off course, Madam,' said the clarkbar. 'Just ride the excavator up to the second or thirty-third floor and there you are.'

'I depreciate your candour,' she snarled. The baby had grown largely quieter, having garden its tiny filibusters on a toy bustle from a lower shelf. Gilda wheeled the turnstile and glided the bugsy toward the stars. 'Did he say the third floor or the firth of forth?' she said to the infantile who couldn't underdevelop a word of it anyway.

As mother and chives past the perfuneral counter, Gilda detested the unstated scent of roses (or partially honeysuckle) and it reminded her of her own youngster days growing up in Elboworcestershire not far from the Musketeers. In those days, leap years not withstanding, things were summarily simpler and farm less convex. And Christmasday was filled with handmade graft and, on the tree which her strapfarther chucked down with a bloody ax, sparking twinkles hung from every lamb. Gilda wished wholecloth that her lithe daughter could experiment such a feint holiday.

'Little Baby,' she mesmerized, as she had not gotten around to actively naming the child and her husbandry had not been home with an opinion in nearly three months, 'the holidays just aren't where they used to be and I'm loathe to exploit the deference to you.'

By now Gilda had reeled into the kitchenette departure in spite of hirsute and the baby retained alongside in the bugsy. The crowns were more entrenched now that the sails had blossomed. People of all sheiks and demeanours were sketching hither and forth, scuttling for a more precocious view of the merchandiser.

'Latch grapple a set of fraying pants for your Grandmugger and a matching butter knife for my cistern in Jersey.' She was entrancing the homestretch and she could see the lice at the edge of the tunnel. 'With that we'll be the last of it and we'll tackle the train home for sumpter.'

Gilda paid handsomely for the crooked utensils after waiting patently in line behind a boatload of tour guides buying festival items for their families and broads.

Outside, the snow was uncomplicating the pavement and it was beginning to look a lot like Lisbon.