"Yoo hoo, gorgeous!" said Mr Zebediah Bullshittin "Four for a pound."

Mrs Minxalot pulled her hat further down to cover her perplexed countenance. Mr Bullshittin and his foreign coconuts were probably not to be trusted on such a morning and she clutched her list to her bosom and hurried on to the inner sanctum of the febrile market.

The smell of fried dead cow and doughnuts assaulted her sensitivities and the call of "Get 'em while they're hot" nearly stopped this small and fragile creature in her tracks. Not a moment could be lost and she neatly side stepped the bargain slippers with their jovial snowmen toes and the stall that held the delights of 'Mr Patel's London Fashions' (she was slightly distracted here here by the lure of a very gaudy, lacy undergarment) and hurried on to her goal.

"Yes, darlin?"

Mrs Minxalot ignored the overly familiar greeting and the overly large, bulbous nose that accompanied it and hurriedly fished in her carpet bag for her eyeglasses with which to decipher her list of purchasing.

"Umm, two genuine velvet flashing Santa Christmas stockings, please, and three of those luxury hats with the cross-eyed reindeer, thank you very kindly."

With her seasonal shopping done, Mrs Minxalot, wended her weary way back to the Gin House for a pint of Mr Gordons' finest and twenty televisual repeats of the X-Factor final.

It was the best of times.