Incompetent's Guide To Gift-Giving

I was in a bookshop the other week (I’m a bit of a second-hand bookshop freak.) In the crafts and hobbies section I spied an interesting Home-Made Presents Guide. Now, I’m not tight-fisted but where’s the sense in spending pounds if you can make for pence. So I made the purchase and hurried home, clutching my money-saving tome. I searched through the pages, with fevered haste, for presents to make from old scraps and paste. The stuff looked archaic and it was then I saw it was published in nineteen ten. Undaunted, because I had spent a quid, I searched it for gifts for both spouse and kid. Felt hats and a satin smoking jacket just didn’t seem cool enough to hack it, nor the money box made from an old tin can or the brightly-painted paper fan. I gazed with despair at the crochet shawl, was there nothing here worth having at all? I searched on with rising agitation and rapidly waning expectation. It was then I saw it, so smart and flash; an elegant wallet for holding cash. This, I decided, would do just fine for that handsome, well-dressed man of mine. It was fashioned from fabric-covered card, I doubted the making would be that hard. I could use my old bits and pieces tin that I hoarded the scraps and oddments in. I worked hard on the thing throughout the day, used fine silk remnants of silver grey. I embroidered it with his monogram; a worthy gift for any man! I tucked a ten pound note inside, then sat and gazed at it with pride. The minute my hubby got home that day, I gave him his present without delay. ‘What’s this then?’ he asked with a puzzled grin that widened at sight of the cash within. ‘Just a gift,’ I said, ‘because you are you.’ ‘Why, thanks,’ he replied, ‘and I love you too.’ He pulled out the tenner, then, with a smile, he looked at the wallet for quite a while. ‘This envelope’s pretty,’ I heard him say, ‘it seems such a shame to throw it away.’ He handed it back to me with a grin, ‘Why not put it in your bits and bobs tin?’