Do you mind having a recycled teabag? I said to Cath who runs own organic baby food business and wears shoes made from recycled car tyres.

I thought I could count on her being one of the few people who probably wouldn't mind.

"Do you have any green tea?" she asked, rather than answering my question.

"I have no green tea, no herbal tea, no British Rail tea, expect for this teabag that has only done one very weak cup of tea so should be fine for another, no bread, no butter, no milk, no bin liners and no money," I told her, making her a cup of weak black tea with the recycled tea bag anyway.

"My assets have been frozen, so I haven't been able to go shopping and we've run out of pretty much everything."

Strictly speaking, I supposed I'd frozen my assets myself, having mislaid my purse and been forced to cancel the cards with which I usually got cash.

New cards were apparently making their way to me, slowly, in the post and Thomas, who is usually a good source of fivers and loose change, was away on business, leaving me penniless.

"You mean you've lost your purse?" queried Cath, in response to my statement about frozen assets. "Here," she went on, getting out her own not lost purse ... "I'll lend you some money."

She gave me a brand new, not recycled at all, fifty pound note (though knowing Cath she probably only uses fifties because they're made from recycled Nicaraguan bank statements of something environmentally and ethically sound) and, as a gesture of gratitude, I took it to the corner shop and attempted to buy some new tea bags and milk.

The owner of shop looked at the note as if it was still a Nicaraguan bank statement, and refused to take it, forcing me to return home empty handed and drink third hand tea with my friend.

"Where did you lose your purse then?" she asked, as we tried to improve the flavour of the dirty dishwater by dunking Jaffa cakes in it.

"Jaffa cake flavour tea is actually quite nice," I commented, before explaining that purse had vanished into thin air, after last trip to corner shop a few days ago.

As the shop is only about twenty yards away and I'd had my purse when I paid for the few things I'd gone out to buy, I hoped that I'd either left it in the store and the owner would hang onto it for me or I'd brought it home and put it somewhere strange and now couldn't find it.

But after spending a day looking everywhere I could think of, I concluded I must have dropped it on the way home and it was now long gone. So I cancelled the cards and eked out an existence with what the Rugrats had in their piggy banks.

Lovely Cath, not only responded to above tale of woe by giving me a Nicaraguan fifty but also popped round later that day with a frozen home-made pie and a tub of fresh organic baby food, so we could eat.

"I think I may know a way of unfreezing your assets quickly," she said, as she removed the pizza I'd bought on that fateful trip to corner shop from my freezer in order to make way for pie and mush.

She put her arm back into the out-of-control ice (I must defrost the freezer this year) and pulled it out again, triumphantly exclaiming: "Your purse!"