Buying gifts that are not obvious

The test for a good gift is whether it survives the first spring clean. Most decorative objects do not. Things that get used every day do.

Buy: something they will handle daily. A good bowl, a proper tote, a shawl in a colour they actually wear. Usefulness is not unromantic — it is how an object earns its place.

Avoid: anything sized to a body you are guessing at, anything that needs a matching set to make sense, and anything whose only function is to sit on a shelf and be looked at.

If you genuinely do not know them well, buy consumable quality — good tea, good soap. It is used, appreciated, and gone, and it never becomes an obligation to display.