Way back in my youth, I used to be brilliant at birthdays. Not mine - I usually get someone else to think of that - but others'. Weeks before the actual date I would start thinking of what presents to get, which friends to get involved in the celebrations and generally make sure that whoever it was who was turning a year older, had as good a day as possible.

Nowadays, I could be the Ebeneezer Scrooge of birthdays. I try and waste as little energy as possible on them. Just let me know who's buying the present so I can give them the money, please make sure it's gift-wrapped, and let's just go to a restaurant and have dinner and get the whole out of here.

So as Significant Other's birthday got closer in my calendar, the panic levels were rapidly getting to scary. The fact that this was going to be the first time we were going to be together on his birthday and that he never got the spectacles I promised for Christmas (not because I didn't want to, but because we never actually managed to get ourselves to an opticians to do so) added some extra pressure to the whole experience. At least I had a reasonable budget to work with.

The first decision: what to buy him? I thought, thought, thought of something that would be useful without being boring, and be a bit romantic at the same time.

Spectacles? Nah! They should have been his Christmas present remember? Clothes? There are too many in the wardrobe. What about something that he used to have back home that he doesn't have here? Ok, so what about ... a bicycle. Eureka!!

Now I'm not really much of a biker person. I can ride one, but buying one would be a completely different matter. I asked some friends for advice, but the answers I got were as good as gobbledygook so they didn't get me very far. The only answer I remembered was "Don't get a bike without getting a lock for it." In this city, nobody's bike remains unstolen.

Next step: the internet. Now I know people are harping on about search engines making us lazier and dumbing us down, but what would we be without Google?

Further investigation led me to what I wanted at the price I wanted it. What I didn't think about was that it was bang in the middle of town, and that I would have to bring it home. Can you see the drama evolving here? On Saturday morning, with about 14 hours to go to the unveiling, my cousin and her husband came to pick me up to take me to the shop (they were getting him the accessories, which worked out very well). The transaction took all of 15 minutes: Chose bike, gave blank stares in response to every single question asked (except "How would you like to pay?" the only familiar question asked throughout the whole time there) and then asked "Can you deliver it today please?" This time, it was the sales assistant's turn to stare. "You'll be fine if you find a nice taxi driver!" was his answer.

In fact, I did manage to get a taxi driver to take me in to the cab with my new bike, only I had to pay him double to do so. He started waffling on about "goods" in the cab, so I got my phone out and called SO to ask him to lock himself in our room until I hid the bike from him.

What I didn't realise then, and only found out at midnight when two seconds after laying eyes on it, SO's face dropped as he said "There's something wrong with it", was that in trying to fit the blessed bicycle in the back of a cab, I must have twisted the front a bit too much and in so doing pulled out some cables.

Thankfully Ex-Flatmate's Significant Other passed by the day after to save the day. That didn't stop us from having to walk all the way into town with the bike the morning after - just to make sure that all was OK, but in my books, safe is better than sorry, and even thought it rained most of the time, it made for a romantic day out.

I heard yesterday that it's something like a 130 days till Christmas. Maybe I should start thinking of a present now!