eBay Addict

Beloved Daughter is jumping up and down squeaking. My underarms are sweating and my heart is pounding. We watch the clock - five, four, three..

"It's ours!" We leap about the kitchen in joy, clasping our hands together and grinning at each other.

I have just bought a 1999 Ford Focus off eBay for £831. It's in Southampton and it's blue.

Post divorce I am seriously broke and have to downsize my life. The Range Rover is the first thing that has to go. It is haemorrhaging money. £130 a week on diesel for the twice-daily 26 mile school run across the middle of Dartmoor. £750 for four new tyres. £500 for a belt. £500 for an air bag and now another £500 for a compressor. All since December.

So I am going 'reverse chic' with my new old Ford Focus. I can't wait to show it off in the school carpark. It will be the only one, whereas there are five other Range Rovers. My new car is straightforward simple proof to one and all, if any were needed, of the havoc She has played in our lives, and of the all too real affects of Her shenanigans. I am going to park it next to her BMW and grin at Her.

But hey - what am I doing now? I'm at it again! It's such fun! I've just pressed the button twice and discovered that I am likely to become the proud new owner of a Land Rover (£1,500) as well as a Mitsubishi Shogun (£2,450). Help! What if I get both? And now I'm not sure I want either anyway! Fingernail biting time - and five days to go!

I lose the Land Rover (hurray!) but eBay emails me to inform me that I am the lucky new owner of an old Shogun based in Swindon (silver).

Oh dear. Now I've got three cars, they're scattered all over the country, and I'm marooned all by myself, snowed in, in the middle of Dartmoor. I am a bit alarmed at what I might find myself doing next!