A trip on my Freecycle

One of the unusual features of marriage is the way it breeds strongly oppositional points of difference about the most trivial of subjects. They spring fully formed into conversations, enabling you to argue violently in favour of, say, grapefruit rearing, Bolivian egg production or shoulder pads - all subjects on which, as far you know, you had absolutely no views at all until your partner happens to dismiss them with an offhand reference in a way that you find deeply and unexpectedly irritating

Freecycle is just such a topic.

"Look," I say. "Candle wax pellets!"

"What are candle wax pellets?" asks Francis.

"I dunno. Something you get from candles you've never got round to house training? Or what about this? Cuddly toys from a hoardtastic toddler."

"What are you planning?" says Francis. "A make your own fire hazard party? Or a new line in toecovers? I can see the advertising now," he says, sketching a headline in the air. 'Get a wax-coated cuddly toy for Christmas. They're like a Barbour, only useless'."

"Oh, come on," I say. "It's only Freecycle."

Francis rolls his eyes up and goes back to cross-referencing his job applications by interview tie colour. Or something.

I regard Freecycle as a cross between legitimate voyeurism and a 24/7 jumble sale, only without the inconvenience of small talk or draughty church halls. Francis sees it as the latest weapon in my long term campaign to fill the house with tat and see if it topples over once it reaches roof level.

He will never understand what he's missing.

“We found a small dead thing in our shed (too far gone to be sure what it was). This spurred us on to clear out the shed…..” begins a recent Freecycle post, which goes on to offer ''A garden spade, fairly narrow blade, good for digging a small deep hole.......". They'd know this, presumably, because they've just dug one for the small, dead shed thing and buried it.

You get a lot of back stories with Freecycle. It’s all part of the charm. In recent weeks, we've been offered a cot ‘which has been slightly gnawed' (hamsters? babies? a mother sick of bedtime and out of Twiglets?) and a large cream rug which, the owners assure us, is 'woven not tufty' something that might have a significant bearing on its desirability given the fact that it also has 'some stainswhich might come out with washing/dry cleaning - but might not.' Any takers? No? Thought not.

There's no item, however intimate, that people aren't ready to advertise. 'Huge bag of sanitary towels?' Why not. Just think laterally - anyone past the menopause will find them fantastically useful when it comes to organising those last minute games of emergency blind man's buff without a handy scarf. Oh, just use your imagination.

I love Freecycle. In addition to satisfying my raging inner mean, penny-pinching cow, it also makes me feel morally invigorated. It's like an internet version of sale of the century, only one that stretches into eternity, piles of stuff spinning round on an endless virtual carousel, there for the taking.

The touching fondness for their possessions is also noticeable. Who, after all, could resist, “the quality 2.5 seater sofa, too good for the dump, manufactured by upholsterer with a Royal Warrant.”

Not me, for sure. Which is why it’s now adorning our sitting room….Together with the fire basket – OK, it’s a bit rusty, but a good clean up will get it as good as new in no time at all - the recorders, recorder music and miniature scores.........

No wonder Francis is suspending my membership. But we've done a fair bit of giving away things, too, I argue. What about the babyseat, books, glasses, stepladder - all in splendid new homes.

"Nobody wanted the stepladder," he says. "And you had to do a twenty mile round trip to deliver the glasses. That's hardly saving the planet. Think of the fuel consumption."

"That's only because the man who wanted them was over 80, couldn't walk and would have had to take three buses to get here."

He looks round at the firebasket which has the uncanny ability to shed its own weight in rust every day without any significant change in appearance.

"You're obsessed," he says.

"I'm not," I say. But I'm not sure I really believe it.