It's amazing how quickly time goes when you are investigating a non-existent shortage of raspberry jelly and there is a deadline to meet.

Especially when the deadline has nothing to do with the shortage and is for a 3,000-word feature and you have only written about 300 words. That, anyway, is my experience.

If I hadn't gone into the corner shop on the way home from dropping Rugrats at summer play scheme, I would never have overheard the two women talking about the shortage, never have been tempted to find out why and would not have had to stay up till 4am trying to write 3,000 words on an altogether different subject.

The two women in the shop were discussing a party one had thrown at the weekend. "I was going to make raspberry jelly but you can't get it anywhere," said one.

"There doesn't seem to be any," remarked the other, peering at the shelves which contained jam and various other reserves.

"No honey?" asked her friend. This is obviously why she was staring at the shelves.

"No, no raspberry jelly," she replied. "Can't get it anywhere."

Unaware that there was a national raspberry jelly shortage, but intrigued, I went home and, instead of getting on with the other 2,700 words I needed to write, I decided to have a quick look on the net and find out why there wasn't any raspberry jelly.

By inserting the words "raspberry jelly shortage" into the search engine, I was given a list of sites giving recipes for raspberry jelly and various tales of people living abroad who missed raspberry jelly a lot.

Most of these sites seemed to originate from the US and by jelly they meant jam. For example, Dave from California who has been backpacking Australia wrote: "There is no shortage of Vegemite but what I really miss is toast and raspberry jelly in the morning."

I presume Dave's friends who regularly check his travel web site to see how his travels are going will rally to the cause and send parcels of raspberry jam to whatever youth hostel he happens to be calling in on next.

I, though, needed to find out about genuine jelly and so searched UK sites only, which appeared to reveal I was on to something.

A site called something to do with leaky cauldrons mentioned the words raspberry jelly shortage and Harry Potter and, not being a Harry Potter fan (I prefer Tolkien myself), I imagined that, in the latest tome, Harry has a raspberry jelly fetish and fans up and down the country have made a rush on the jelly shelves of supermarkets, causing a global shortage.

When I went onto the actual site, though, it appeared that there was simply a shortage of Harry Potter merchandise.

One more site looked as if it had the answer to my query. The BBLRC rowing club gave details of its beach party, which included "Chris launching himself and a large pink lilo up the water slide and into the (raspberry) jelly pool beyond."

Which is when I realised it was almost 3pm and the Rugrats play scheme would be finishing shortly and I ought to be there to pick them up.

Having squandered the only opportunity I'd had to get any work done, I went to collect them and overheard one of the other children at playtime asking what flavour jelly they were having for tea.

"Blackcurrant," the mother replied. "I couldn't get any raspberry. They don't seem to have it anywhere and I've no idea why."

I may not be able to meet deadlines but I do have answers to important questions of the day.