So tonight I did something I never thought I'd do (outside marrying into rich farming stock, which is an oxymoron these days anyway). I went to a cow auction in aid of toothy witch Esther Rantzen's favourite charity, Childline.

In case anyone was wondering, our cow of choice was this one. Yours for only £6,000! The other two we liked went for over 10 grand each. Sigh. However, we did discover that the auction is NOT OVER! They're selling off another 50 odd cows online over the next 4 weeks.

Anyway, the auction itself was a real laugh. And whatever they say, it feels WICKED to stick an orange paddle in the air and have a camp, ruddy-faced man in a bowtie says "£3,500 with the gentleman in black". I was so grown up! Unfortunately, our upper limit was so low that he soon realised we weren't the most serious (-ly wealthy) bidders, despite my extremely professional (I thought) shake of the head when he looked back at me to see if we would go higher.

So, hopefully, I'll bloggin' once again when my ma manages to get her hands on a cow of her very own. Probably with photos too. In the meantime, here's a story of how I bid over £2k for a macrame tortoise... (cont. p.94)