Why do I remember shouting ‘Hah! Up yours R-five-hyphens-81, it’s mine!’ at some ungodly hour of the morning, probably scaring a passing cat?

R-five-hyphens-81. The other bidder in the online property auction – privacy maintained by the website only allowing you to see the first and last letters of your opponent’s name. The buzz of the auction last night. Watching with bated breath as they put in a bid with ten minutes to go on the countdown timer. So I put in a bid. Then they put in another. And I added another. We went round in circles until there were four seconds left on the clock. I hit the button one last time. And I won it.

Now there’s a multitude of emails in my inbox that say things like ‘Congratulations on your purchase’ and ‘receipt for your payment.’ The automated phone call from the bank, the robot voice asking me to confirm that it wasn’t a fraudulent transaction, that it was really me requesting to transfer the small sum of fifty grand to Scottish Pine Properties in Aberdeen.

I’ve actually done it. I’ve spent almost all of Mum and Dad’s money on a Christmas tree farm. In Scotland. What was I thinking?

I glance at the empty bottles again. That Prosecco has got a lot to answer for.

Note to self: change security questions. Must be something unable to answer when drunk. The origins of pi or long division or something. Unfortunately I still remember my mother’s maiden name and my first school even after three bottles of fizzy wine.

You know how you get overexcited at eBay auctions and you only want that skirt if it doesn’t go above £1.50 and you’re there right at the end and people are bidding and suddenly you’ve won the thing for £29.77 and you’re absolutely exhilarated until the invoice email comes through, and you realise you do actually have to pay £29.77 plus postage for someone’s manky old skirt that’s probably got moth-eaten holes in it and stitching coming out, and when you get it, it smells of stale cigarette smoke and clearly has never met a washing machine before? This is like that, but I’ve bought a Christmas tree farm. This is so far removed from anything I’d ever normally even consider doing. But somehow, it doesn’t feel like a mistake. That money has been sitting in a savings account, waiting for something to happen to it. I wanted to make something of it, to use the money from the sale of Mum and Dad’s house to honour their memory or make them proud or something. I’ve never known what. That’s why I haven’t touched it since it came through.