'I let my kids get Manchester Christmas Markets' pick and mix... our £22 bag was an absolute joke'

Nothing quite puts the fear of dread in parents like the pick and mix stall.

With kids shovelling their scoops like there's no tomorrow, you never quite know what's going to hit you until the bag hits the scales.

I knew the stall at Manchester's Christmas Markets would be expensive. It's a premium location and everyone knows you don't come away from the markets feeling flush.

I reluctantly agreed to let my kids get a bag of goodies from the Kingdom of Sweets stall to take with us to the Printworks' Vue Cinema where we were quite aptly watching the new Wonka movie on Saturday.

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Cinema pick and mix prices aren't exactly cheap, so I didn't think the difference would be too much.

But I was staggered when the bag got weighed and it came to £21.89! Almost the same price as our three cinema tickets.

Admittedly they got quite a few sweets - including a few big ones like two jelly snakes - but there's no way you would expect to pay almost £22.

The signs on the Cathedral Gardens stall indicate that it's £2.99 per 100g, but when you think a standard big bag of Haribo weighs 175g, it soon adds up. And they're a damn site cheaper at £1.25 for a bag from Tesco too.

Inside the cinema I checked the price of their pick and mix and it's almost half the price of the markets, at £1.59 per 100g.

When I counted how many sweets we'd actually got it was 98 in total - some of them tiny Dolly Mixtures.

We do usually take our own sweets to the cinema, but I thought it would make a nice Christmas treat. I won't be making that mistake again.

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