I’ve had a miserable day today all-in-all. This is of course notwithstanding still being a fortunate, privileged woman with little to complain about really. (Just so anyone out there who wants to send me messages about sparing thoughts for others less well off than me can save their energy!)

We had to come back to Sandhurst today and this has filled me with gloom in all sorts of ways. Firstly I can’t wake up in the cottage tomorrow morning and that fills me with despondency. Secondly I had to come back to a place where the night sky is orange with wasted electricity, the day sky is pink with pollution and the entire population are out and about in their 4x4s that never, ever get mud on their tyres. Finally, we came back to a post box full of horrible mail and a whole load of messages on the answering machine that I didn’t want to deal with.

Although I’ve not heard anything from my ex-husband in a very long time (it’s now four years since we parted), there were a few messages on my answering machine from him and he sounded really anxious. I thought someone had died. I phoned him back to discover that his miserable tone was sheer embarrassment rather than the result of bereavement.

His mother had phoned him and told him she intended to phone me and ask for this amethyst necklace and earrings back that she claimed she’d ‘loaned’ to me many years ago. Now it is funny really because I can clearly remember the day I received them (I have the memory of an elephant as I’ve said before). She told me that she’d been given them by Cyril, her twin, but that she hated them and felt they would suit me much better. She asked me if I’d like them. I was too polite to say ‘no thank you, I don’t wear jewellery like this – give me a £1.99 diamante necklace from Accessorise any day’ so I tried to say a polite 'no thank you, I really couldn't' and she wouldn't hear of it so I took them. They’ve been in the back of my wardrobe ever since and have never come out of their box. There was no suggestion of them being a ‘loan’.

Somehow, now, probably a dozen years after being given them, she is asking for them back. How bizarre is that? She has translated a gift into a loan so she can ask for them back. I can’t believe the mean-spiritedness of this request. To me, a gift is a gift and you would NEVER, EVER ask for it back……well, not in my world anyway. What is odd is that a quick scoot round ebay and some other jewellery sites tells me they are virtually worthless anyway.

Poor old Andrew decided to bite the bullet and phone me so he could prevent her from doing so. He was mortified. I am angry. To me it’s the principle rather than a desire to keep the stuff. What next? If I give them back to her will she come back after me for a mirror that she once gave me and a sewing box too? It’s funny, at the time Andrew left this house, he suggested to me that I hid the things she’d given me so she couldn’t take them back when he moved. I thought at the time he was over-reacting but now I see he had a valid point.

Thank goodness my new ‘in-laws’ are nice, normal people. I suppose instead of being angry I should just count my blessings again.