Ha! Got it for 5p!

I am become a junk monkey, rummaging at the local car boot, up to my paws in a field where people gather once a week to swap each other's stuff.

You can find me there now, Sunday morning regular, grubbing about the 50p action movie DVDs, the endless curled up and dried out Jeffrey Archers, the old jumpers, a pound apiece, polyester and acrylic.

I have been wondering what leads me to these treasures, apart from the fantastic possibility I might pick up another plastic handbag for under a pound, or collect yet another candelabra with a wonky arm, or find that elusive knife and fork tray, the acquisition of which I would trade at least 25p.

Reader, it is the banter and the barter. I am thinking it is become the test of my older middle age, to have the stamina to go head-to-head in a battle of words with someone who is trying to flog me a used commemorative teatowel of the marriage of Princess Di and Prince Charles for the rich sum of 20p, when I retort that 10p would be a gift, especially considering the pan-shaped burn over Charlie boy's left eye.

Spurred on by this weekly testing ground for my trading wits (and by the fantasy, ignore the impossibility, that I will surely pick up a genuine Kwanpen handbag for one pound), I resolve now to continue my junk monkeying ways until I am aged 92. I shall drive a mean bargain then for the commemorative King Charles coronation teatowel, you see if I don't.