IT'S easy buying presents for women, and, for that matter, girls. Girls love all sorts of silly, frippery things — clothes, make-up, jewellery, perfume, books and tiny pictures or mirrors to hang on the wall.

I'VE lost track of what my mother wants the three of us to do with her ashes once she is dead. Her ever-changing instructions usually refer back to her last adventure — she has had us flinging her from the north face of some inaccessible mountain in Nepal, or scattering her over piranha inhabited waters in Venezuela.

WE'VE done it - we've christened our new tent.

THAT is the thing when another big sporting event gets ticked off the calendar — it is all anti-climax till the adrenaline of the next fixture kicks in. I am not talking football — I am a woman who has resisted ever attending a match above primary 5 level.

WITH the middle of May now officially behind us, and with it, the risk of frost, the plants that have been taking over our dining table since March are now in the garden.

BY the time you read this I'll know whether I made it round the Bealach on Saturday. For some, the Bealach Beag is a nice wee Saturday cycle round one of the most stunningly beautiful peninsulas on the west coast of Scotland.

SITTING in the sun outside The Ceilidh Place last Sunday, nursing a latte and trying to hang onto those final, deliciously relaxed feel-good moments between the wedding the day before and the pile of ironing waiting at home, the conversation turned to lists.

IT has been a busy old week and it has not helped that I have had car trouble too. In fact it is a bit of a chicken and egg week — if I had not been so busy the car trouble would not have occurred, but car trouble having happened, I have been busier than ever trying to sort it out.

I'VE been in the mood this week to reminisce — to haul out the old photo albums and flick through the late '80s and early '90s, back to the days when Mr Marr and I first got together.

I DON'T know about you, but it hurts to go back to work after time away, and this Easter has been no exception. After a week of life at Islay pace (for which, read considerably slower than normal) it was a shock to set my alarm for 4.45am and seriously depressing to drag my body out of bed to find it was still dark. The clocks had changed in my absence.

IT is not often that I walk into a room and am embarrassed by what I am wearing, but it happened with bells on at Alison's 40th.

MR Marr is good at "Boys' Things". At the risk of being thought girly and pathetic, he is very handy to have around the place. This week, for example, he has managed to fix the lights in the living room, retune the telly to fix a major "Oh no, BBC One has gone silent" emergency and mend a puncture on Rachael's bike.

IT’S often the case with kids that you were just about to treat them to something when they start asking for that very thing, over and over again, in that incessant whiny tone that few parents can tolerate. However reluctantly, you then have to refuse; otherwise the whining will be forever viewed as a victory for pester power.

'OUT with the old and in with the new!' might be the tabloid headline to sum up this week in the Marr household – but that wouldn't quite capture the range of Emotions (with a deliberate capital 'E') we've been experiencing since Doodle 'moved to the other side'.

I HEARD a shocking statistic this morning — apparently 19 per cent of men only own one pair of shoes. I know there's the cliché about women being obsessed with shoes, but even those of us who curtail our natural enthusiasm must balk at that statistic. Just one pair of shoes? How on earth do they cope?

It's MFR Charity Auction time again. The big banner across Academy Street proudly proclaims the dates — 7th to 9th March 2008. For weeks now the charity team has been sourcing, cataloguing and allocating time slots to lots as diverse as weekend breaks, fly fishing permits and office chairs.

THE posties have been busy down our street lately, delivering the fruits (and vegetables) of my unsupervised on-line spending spree at Christmas.

BY the time you’re reading this we'll have been back from Torridon for a week, hopefully all recovered — washing and ironing done, bikes and waterproofs back in the shed and the loft, and livers returning to something approaching normal size. The kids will no longer be falling asleep in class and my deposit cheque will have been returned uncashed, given that we left the Youth Hostel immaculate.

THERE have been several occasions over the past week that I wish I'd kept my idea to myself, but last weekend I just blurted it out. I asked the girls how they'd like it if we sold the house, bought a double decker bus, and drove off around the world to see where the road would take us.

I ADORE being on holiday, but they can be a source of stress. Another thing to get just right.

I KNOW I don't do myself any favours by being impatient but it lurks under the surface most of the time. I try to bite my tongue but occasionally it gets the better of me.

JANUARY: it's a dreich, miserable month – a month of contrasts – from the excesses and celebrations at the bells of the New Year, to the beans on toast and lentil soup of the long, cold nights 'til pay day comes round again.

AS I write, the news has just come through that Kenny Richey, the 43-year-old former US Marine brought up in Scotland and sentenced to death in Ohio 21 years ago, has touched down at Edinburgh airport.

SO here we are, first week of the New Year, and I'm sure I'm not alone in sitting at my computer in an elasticated waistband.

I DO not know when I will learn — every week when I do the Tesco shop, I check my modest list and choose a small trolley.

DEAR Sarah, Morag and Karen, I am sorry — I have let you all down.

I'M in trouble. Again. At the time of writing, there is a day and a half to go until November ends. That's just 36 short hours in which to find the advent calendar, fill its pockets with miniature goodies, and hang it in the hall to mark the start of advent. If I fail, there will be all hell to pay. December without the Advent Calendar? Unheard of.

THE e-mail from Ken seemed innocuous enough — there, in the subject box, the words "Your help is requested."

I DON'T know about you, but every morning I get up and put on my uniform. I'm not talking about something provided by the NHS or the Scottish Prison Service, I'm talking about the fact that I always wear the same clothes — or a variation on a theme. And it's always been like that.

IT wasn't how we'd planned to spend Bonfire night. Last Monday should have been about "oohing" and "aahing" at pretty colours in the sky whilst trying to stay warm and dry. Instead, last Monday was the night of the Great Hamster Hunt of 2007.