Get a life, Cherie!

I nearly bought three grand pianos one late night whilst surfing on a particularly well-known internet auction site. This illustrates the very real danger of the combination of a couple of glasses of wine, late night shopping, a credit card and the all-too-accessible internet shopfront. It was the eve of my fiftieth birthday and I was determined to buy myself the sort of birthday pressie I'd always wanted. What I didn't understand was how these auction sites worked - I was a total novice and didn't realise that a bid is binding.

When my eldest son came downstairs at about 2am and asked why on earth I was still up and about, he was shocked to find what I'd done.

"Tomorrow morning you could be the owner of three grand pianos!" he spluttered. "Where on earth are you going to put them?

"

I was lucky. Two of the pianos went to other bidders. Thank goodness. The one I did buy was wonderful - and is my little treasure.

But surfing such sites is almost addictive - once you allow yourself in. It's like being a kid in a sweetie shop with an inexhaustible supply of pocket money. Yes, you can get bargains and sell your own unwanted junk - but you have to spend hours monitoring sales, you must have the time to sneak in on an auction at the last minute. They call it "sniping" and it's very time and effort consuming! I did it for a couple of months and then decided to get a life!

So I wonder why Cherie Blair allegedly spends so much time on that site, buying and selling trivia and even, it's said, unwanted gifts!

Perhaps she has too many evenings alone in front of the computer, with a credit card and a glass of wine. In my limited experience, that's what gives ladies of a certain age the internet bug!!!!