Isn’t it funny where your mind goes when you let it wander? This morning I was lying awake at 4.30am, listening to the birds and wishing on this occasion they wouldn’t sing quite so enthusiastically so I could go back to sleep, when I started thinking about things we’d bought over the years.

So here’s the question. What’s the best thing you’ve ever bought?

For the purpose of this, ‘best’ can mean, most expensive, most beautiful, most useful, best bargain or just your favourite thing in the whole world.

Here’s what I came up with.

I love my car and my house and garden, so they are certainly the most expensive. I’ve also loved all my cats, some of which we ‘bought’ from the RSPCA, others were ‘free’ as they just arrived on the doorstep.

Then there is our best bargain, probably a sideboard we bought for £65. We thought at the time it was a good deal but when some time later we saw an identical one for sale in another shop for £665, we realised the price ticket on ours had been seriously wrong!

However, the item I decided was the best thing we have ever bought is much more mundane. It is in fact an extension reel (I bet you didn’t see that coming!)

It was one of the first things we bought soon after we got married in 1973. I don’t remember what we paid for it, but we bought it from Woolworths, so I don’t expect it was expensive.

It has been used and abused over the years helping us with every job imaginable, inside and out, and now, almost 40 years on it is still in regular use, mostly in the garden, and is still working perfectly.

So because of it’s usefulness, reliability, value for money and for being an all round good egg, the best thing we have ever bought is an extension reel.