She is a discriminating shopper, a young girl who enjoys new apparel, footwear and jewellery every bit as much as her peers, but whose idea of a shopping expedition is certainly different. Not for her the aimless wandering about a mall in search for elusive perfection or the challenge of selecting by chance items that take her fancy.

Her idea of shopping is to enter a shop, and then exit it as soon as practically possible. She knows, as she enters, what she wants. If she infers that the stock carried by that store does not match closely with her expectations, out she goes. Logical enough. But she takes it one step further, by doing some homework, taking to the Internet to look for clothing items that she knows she will like, noting where they are sold, and then making for that particular shop.

She is on the cusp of fifteen. She has experienced, on occasion, the agony of being in the company of her peers whose idea of fun and entertainment is to file into one shop after another whose inventory is geared to attract teen-age girls. And she detests this ritual.

As her grandmother it took me a little while to realize what her modus operandi consisted of, when I'd go shopping with her.

It's sparing of time and patience, something I have yet to learn, despite the 60 years' gap in our age.