John Lewis sells an extraordinary number of things I could never find a use for in life. And that’s just the kitchen department. We got up late and went to Bluewater. I have been hunting for one of those graters with a handle where you put the cheese in the top, flip down the lid and turn it around. The cheese comes out of a hole in the end.

Mum says it’s called a Mouli-something-or-other, so I assume it’s made by Moulinex.

I can’t find them anywhere. Woolworths seemed a logical option, as did Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, but none of them sell it, which only left Lakeland and John Lewis, both at Bluewater.

Neither had one.

Lakeland had squeegies just for doing the condensation on the inside of windows, and expandable toast racks that you could fold up when not in use. John Lewis, on the other hand, had everything from crab-claw shaped devices for smashing up crabs’ claws, metal combs for holding onions while you cut them, egg top decapitators (’a perfect egg every time’), pineapple slicers and a whole load of things you’d only ever use once a year.

They did have one thing, though, that is the answer to a thousand lazy cooks’ prayers - Toastabags (www.toastabags.com).

They let you cook anything (and everything) in your toaster. Fillet steak? Slip it in a bag and drop it in your toaster. Fancy an omlette? Mix up the imgredients, pour them into a bag and put it in your toaster. How about beans on toast? Simple. One slice of bread in one slot of the toaster and a bag full of beans in the other.

And when you’re done you can just wash it out and use it again (although the thought of washing out out after doing eggs strikes me as rather like washing out a condom).

I wonder if you can do it with a freezer bag.

After the excitement of the Toastabags I was in no fit state to continue the hunt for a mouli-something-or-other so we went and got fish and chips (the concept was better that the reality) in the foodcourt. It was freezing, which I guess explains why they call it the Wintergarden.

By the time we’d finished the place was pretty much shutting up, so we got back in the car and came home, bypassing the gym in favour of tea and mince pies while Paul took down his christmas tree.

He dropped me off home when he’d done and I caught up on my emailing, and as I sat in the study quietly typing away a red laser beam shot through my blind and danced around on the wall just in front of my face.

It was a quite a shock, and it moved around there for a few seconds until I looked towards the blind. Of course, I couldn’t see out so I couldn’t see who was doing it, but as I turned it went out. You can see in perfectly, of course. When it’s dark outside and the light is on then the blind may as well not be there, so perhaps the person with the laser thought I could see them, too, and switched it off.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have made that phone call on Wednesday after all.

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