So the dust begins to settle on another festive season and it seems the only decision to make is when do the decorations come down. Well maybe not the only decision. Since late December the January sales have been in full swing in Lymington and visiting friends have already benefited with up to an amazing fifty per cent off!
For the purposes of clarity I would like to make clear that the last was a verbatim quote, not my opinion. Frankly I don’t get so excited about buying things I didn’t know I needed until I realise I can get them half price. Furthermore I have to say that our friends are obviously not the sort of people who do buy just because they see a reduction sticker so I couldn’t be referring to them now could I? Really good friends are not so easy to find so I’m not about to risk any unintentional insult, it’s easy enough to do that with an ill-considered ‘amusing’ email as it is! No, there’s no story there, I have a friend who has done it. Really.
Anyway, and regardless of all that, there is still a strange draw to arm oneself with an already battered credit card and sally forth into the shops with big red percentages plastered over their windows in case there really is something you would be gutted to find you missed out on. What is that about? Over the Christmas period we have had visits from family and friends who have been to some of the poorest parts of Africa and the Indian subcontinent and seen pictures and heard descriptions of what it was like for the poorest of the poor. I’m not sure what a January sale would consist of in the interior of Liberia, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t draw queues of people waiting to get designer handbags at half price.
By all means buy a bargain, shop ’till you drop and enjoy it, but why not match your spending pound for pound by giving a gift to those for whom January just means they have survived another year. Try Living Gifts or a charity of your own choice and start the year as you mean to go on. A very prosperous New Year to you and your own.