Cooking up a reason not to go shopping again.

Byline: Rosie Williams

BACON is off the menu. So is Welsh rarebit. For the grill has decided to call it a day. And the repair man says it's not worth repairing.

I try to be gentle as I break the news to the husband. He asks how I'd feel about a cooker as a Christmas present? I ask how he'd feel about a week in hospital?

We are hardly through the electrical shop's automatic doors when an assistant with a broad Cardiff accent, a huge chest and a rather attractive name badge, sweeps up and asks if she can help.

I reply that we just want to browse. I head off to the cookers corner while the husband lags behind, pretending to fasten a shoe lace. Then, when he thinks the coast is clear, he sneaks off in the direction of the Playstations. Carol, as the assistant is apparently called, gets to him before I do. Would he like to see her range? No, I reply.

He's just browsing.

I link his arm and escort him several steps forward, then several steps to the left, where we are confronted by row upon row of TV sets, all showing England scoring a try. I decide to indulge the husband, just for a minute, but Carol is quick off the mark.

Would we like to see her extrawide flat screen? I explain we already have a perfectly good 12inch portable, thank you.

Then I steer the husband through the washing machines and past the freezers, arriving in the cookers, to be met by Carol. I give in and explain that we are looking for a cooker. One with a grill that works.

She says they have a superb offer on this white cooker. I tell her white wouldn't go in my kitchen. What colour is my kitchen, she asks? Terracotta, I tell her. She has a friend with a terracotta kitchen and a white cooker, she says. And hers looks lovely. The husband, seeing the price tag, agrees. He thinks it would look lovely too.

I spot a stainless steel cooker which I immediately like. Carol says her daughter has that cooker and she is always saying how wonderful it is. Which puts me off. I move to a flashy over-priced cooker with gold knobs, just to excite Carol and terrify the husband. But the husband isn't looking. He is reading a leaflet about how we can have a cooker now and pay in 2004.

He suddenly doesn't care which cooker we have and goes back to the Playstations. So I pick the most expensive. Racing green with gold knobs. And I sit down while Carol does the paperwork. Which only takes, oh, about 25 minutes. Then she discovers the racing green with gold knobs is out of sock. What about the black with gold knobs?

That's out of stock too. They do have the white with gold knobs, though.

At which point I lose the will to live, never mind order a cooker. I smile at Carol and head for the husband. Bacon is very high in cholesterol, I tell him. And I don't really like Welsh rarebit after all.