I had no worries with the prospect of “going solo” on the Christmas tree buying. Over the years my wife and I had gone on many such expeditions and now had a pretty good grasp of what was acceptable to both of us. Just one technical hitch, we both like a 6ft. (2m.) tree and we have no car ( I blame the excellence of Swiss public transport). A 6ft. tree was a difficult prospect for one person to carry a goodly distance. My solution was to phone my neighbour Mandy. Mandy is a good friend who lives a few floors down from us and she was an absolute gem. Once I had explained the problem she unhesitatingly said yes to helping me, instantly reorganised her life to accommodate this and set out with me in her car to hunt down a suitable tree.

We patrolled round the local town checking out several places to find a suitable tree, eventually deciding on the local supermarket. Mandy drove us into the underground car park to find a space to park, at which point her car stopped. The engine had died despite having been in for repairs to this specific problem only a few days earlier. After half an hour of trying to effect a temporary repair we gave up, pushed the car into an empty bay and notified the supermarket of the problem. We then went about looking for the tree. While I viewed and decided, Mandy talked with a friend we had met about her trials with her car. Once the tree was bought Mandy phoned for a taxi to take us home and the taxi driver agreed to come on condition he could fit the tree into his car. He could, but only diagonally across the car from the driver-side back door to the passenger-side front seat. I put Mandy into the passenger-side back seat, she deserved the space, and got into the front seat. Now try to picture this. Me sitting, head on one side, sandwiched between the bulk of the tree and the passenger side door. From the inside it was weird but practical; from the outside it must have looked ridiculous. It certainly turned a few heads.

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