You will have met this lady if you have ever advertised a child’s pony for sale. I will call her Mrs T-W – or time waster for short. She always makes her first phone call at around 9.30pm. She tells you that she is interested in your pony and you put on your best polite frame of mind, even though you were just going to bed. However, she then spends the whole 45 minutes that she is on the phone telling you about all the amazing ponies she has ever had and all the people she knows who have ponies at full livery with well known producers. You are let off the hook when there is something she wants to watch on the TV and she tells you she will ring tomorrow when she has made arrangements with the ‘expert’ she is going to bring with her about when they can come.

She rings again a few days later – now she knows you she can leave it until 10.30pm. You have to remember that she is a potential customer and therefore you can tell her to go away in the finest colloquial terms. She wants to come the next morning at 11am. It is the only time her famous expert can get away. You remind yourself that you really do want to sell this pony. It is one you bought purely to get going and sell on to make a few pounds to support the others and so you mentally cancel your arrangements and tell her through gritted teeth that you will see her tomorrow at 11am.