A decent bottle of sherry, a posh-looking box of chocolate biscuits and a wicker basket of winter-flowering begonias.

Peter surveyed this perfectly respectable trio of presents and tried to avoid thinking the obvious. But it was undeniable, that reflected in the deep-blue glass of the wine bottle, and hidden among the scarlet petals lay a simple truth – he had no idea who his mother was.

Not literally of course – Marjorie Evans wasn’t the kind of woman whose presence you could ignore. Similarly, her annual invitations to Christmas lunch were gaudy and unavoidable, printed on pretentious rectangles of card which Peter strongly suspected had been scented.

It was on receiving the invite that the panic started, as it did every year – to find gifts for a woman who perpetually declined to air an open and honest opinion on any product, person or pop-culture phenomena for a crippling fear of stepping on anybody else’s toes.

With a sigh, Peter began to wrap, wondering whether he should have bought anything at all.