Size does matter - ignore all other opinions to the contrary. When you're choosing a suitcase, small (for once) is never more beautiful.

Think big and you're merely storing up problems for yourself at stations and airports.

Which is why I'm still struggling to understand why I bought the massive expandable suitcase with wheels which, being too large to get though my bedroom door, is lurking on the landing.

If I'm honest I know the answer. It was cheap. It was, in fact, marked down in a sale of luggage and I cannot resist a bargain, even if that bargain, ultimately proves to be anything but.

Getting it on the bus should have made me turn right round, go back to the shop and ask for a refund.

"You got a body in there?' said the driver.

"You going to charge a fare for it if I have?" I replied.

When I finally got it home, The Mother was appalled. "I thought you were going away for a fortnight not a couple of years," she said.

"Look, this cost me just under £40 - I've seen cases like this going for well over £100," I told her.

"But it's so big," she said. "A family of four would be hard pressed to fill a case that size."

"A family of six, more like," I said. "This is an expandable, it gets even bigger!"

Later that day The Mother found the case standing outside my bedroom, somewhat like a sentry. I explained the difficulty I'd had in trying to manoeuvre it through the door.

"Then how do you expect to get it on a train all by yourself?" she asked.

"And when you check in at the airport you're bound to get charged for unwieldy luggage."

"No, you get penalised for excess luggage," I said. "This isn't excess, it's just one perfectly acceptable suitcase, though admittedly a little on the large size."

Yet I knew she had a point, several in fact. How would I get it onto a train by myself when the days of porters and obliging gentlemen passengers are but a distant memory, especially in the morning rush hour?

And, yes, I had seen smaller cases than this regarded with suspicion at airport check-ins. "Did you pack this yourself, madam? Any bodies inside?"

"How much clothing are you taking?" The Mother asked, peering inside the case. "There's enough room to carry Marks & Spencer's entire winter stock."

"And the kitchen sink," I muttered. I was beginning to realise I had made a mistake, especially when The Mother told me she thought the case was not only big but ugly.

"It's the sort of case you see going round and round on the airport carousel when you go to claim your baggage," she said. "Even the owners don't want it!"

There were a couple of options left to me. I could either advertise the case for sale in The Argus: "Traveller with big ideas wishes to find good home for large suitcase . . ." or I could shove it in the loft.

"I'll put it in the loft for now," I told The Mother.

"How?" she asked.

Good question and only one answer. Case into loft won't go.

"Well you can't keep it on the landing, I keep bumping into the wretched thing," said the Mother.

One more word out of you and you won't be bumping into my case for much longer, I thought. You'll be in it.

"Yes officer, there is a body inside this case - but only a small one ..."