As part of my ‘look at all the lovely things you’ve got! You certainly don’t need [insert material object A, B, C, or, indeed, any letter to Z], now, do you, you greedy troll?’ approach to spending no money, I have been surveying things already in my hapless grasp. It’s not going badly; my credit card statement for last month was £40, and that was spent on fuel. A new perspective on things you’re already very familiar with really helps, it seems – I started looking at things anew when I resolved to stop spending money on everything except genuinely necessary stuff, and I realised that however many years of having a little, albeit a very little, spare cash have resulted in some possessions that I hope I will always have, things that really kick aesthetic arse (at least in my not-so-humble opinion) or which do their job so very well that you don’t care if they’re hideously ugly. Though I don’t seem to have included those things here. Ah. Anyway. I digress. Here we go:

1. The casserole dish that Quercus bought me for Valentine’s day this year. I didn’t see it coming; we normally agree a token sum, the surpassing of which results in immediate death a very stern look, and I think that sum was about £3 this year. I can’t really say that I looked sternly at him when he produced the casserole d’amour, however, because that would be a very large lie indeed – I was too busy hyperventilating and drooling.

2. My jewellery box. It is made of reclaimed yew, by these very lovely people, who not only let Quercus pick out the very piece of wood he wanted the box made from, but accommodated his delusions of grandeur designs for the overall shape of it and for the numbers and style of drawers and hidey-holes. He appeared with a large cardboard box at about three in the morning on the night we got married; we’d spent about four hours clearing up the hall we’d had a dance in, and were both in that strange combination of exhilaration and tiredness which one can only achieve having been awake for about thirty hours straight. I hadn’t realised we were doing presents, so felt shifty because I hadn’t got him anything (well, I had, but it was a pair of wellies; come to think of it, this exchange sums up our relationship quite well, I realise); I’d hankered after a box like this since seeing them for the first time in 1998 (this was 2005) at the craft fair which takes place each summer on Exeter’s cathedral green (should that be capitalised, I wonder?). Every time I take something out of it, and, as a habitual earring-wearer, that’s pretty much every morning, I am struck by the gorgeousness of its colours, its textures, which vary from the roughness of original bark to the smooth polish created by hours of very, very, very fine sandpaper, and by the loveliness of Quercus.

3. My slippers. These come from the very lovely folks at the Sunshine Coast Slipper Co., and were bought when Quercus and I were in British Columbia a couple of years (!) back. They are fabulous. Simple. I fight a constant battle to avoid abusing them by walking outside in them, as they are tough enough to do so easily, but I’m aware that it’s a slippery slope from a quick nip round to get the washing to never, ever, taking them off until one day I find myself in the supermarket wearing them, with unwashed hair, mad, staring eyes, and security men closing in from all sides.

4. The very lovely turquoise Raku clock which lives in the sitting room. It came from a small shop in Tavistock, and I absolutely love the colour, the texture of the glaze created by the raku firing process, and the general shape of it. Raku involves shoving pottery, coated in an appropriate glaze, into sawdust when it’s still very hot from the kiln; the fires and gases created by this are what cause the varied effects of the end-result’s colouring. The clock people used to have a website full of such lovely creations as to make one slaver rather unattractively, but, fortunately for both my bank balance and my potentially drool-covered chin, it appears to have vanished. (Though I could get quite keen on these, which they sell in the same shop.)

5. A rather extravagant bigonia which liveth in the sitting room. It was a tiny cutting from a friend about ten minutes ago, but by god these things grow! I love the red leaves – they just seem so wrong. I also rather like the pot it’s in, which came from Trago Mills, which might seem rather surprising to those of you familiar with their work, but I suppose into each life a little sunshine must also fall, or something.

6. Utensils. I love both the pot and its contents. Wooden spoons and spatulas, particularly the arbutus ones we acquired on Cortes Island, really do it for me; I rarely use anything else when cooking, and, rather wankily, I have favourites which I am quite superstitious about using – if I’m doing, say, a birthday cake, I really prefer to use the small arbutus spatula, as if it somehow imbues said comestible with super-powers. (I know. I know. Up the medication already, woman.) I also love this jar; officially, it’s a Rumtopf, and I wish, how I wish, that the aged parent hadn’t dropped the beautiful glass lid on the floor, as, if he’d only managed not to, that jar would be stuffed full of a rather appealing alcoholic substance even as we speak.

7. Books. I know – technically this is cheating, as this isn’t strictly one thing. But I don’t care – that’s the joy of being a hypocrit, you see! To know you’re wrong, and to do it anyway! Or something. Ahem. Moving on. I s’pose favourite books would include the moste excellente Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, The Pursuit of Love (both long-term loves), and, I am slightly (though clearly not too) ashamed to admit, at least for the present, Twilight.

Two together for this one: 8. The stove. Oh, the stove. A Woodwarm 6, for those of you who’re interested. Fan-bloody-tastic. Throw wood in it. Dry washing over it. Stare into it (it’s far more interesting than TV ever was). Cook on it. Steam puddings on it. Which brings me to: 9. The kettle on the stove. This came to us from Quercus’s mother, who once had a red Aga (very lovely but hideous to run because it was an oil-fired chappy); the kettle is very flat-bottomed (would that the same were true of myself) for use on Aga hotplates, but works equally well on the stove. I love the shape of it – it’s so simple-looking, not least because it has no switch.

10. A painting of Paris which my mother watched being done when she was there for six weeks with her school’s production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, for which she organised the music. It always sounded like a very happy time for her; she spent a few months in Germany the following summer with lots of the people she’d been in France with, and nearly married a German man she met during that time. How different her life would have been had things followed that path. It’s peculiar, but I particularly like the khaki colour of the mounting; my father had the painting remounted (still in the original frame) for her many years later, and the colour sets off the picture really well, in my view.

I could add a million things to this list. My wedding ring, the Tiffany lamp Quercus bought me for a birthday present a few years back, the patchwork cushion one of my newly-acquired stepsisters made me the Christmas before last, the various strings of little lighties that are strewn about the house, the sun-emblazoned cushion my mother gave me when I was fourteen. And you?