I was slightly miffed when looking at shoes on eBay the other day to see a pair in my size described as 'suitable for women or transvestites'. What a cheek. I only take size eight, which isn't all that big for women, and quite small for men. I used to have big feet, but now they're not. I don't mean I've had them surgically altered it's just that these days younger people all have much bigger feet than they used to and they've caught up with me. At one time, finding shoes for someone who took between sizes seven and eight was a nightmare. You'd go into a shoeshop lusting after a pair of pale pink ballerina-style flats and find they only had them up to size four and the shelves for your size only contained brown brogues which looked like rowing boats. By the time you'd visited eight shops trying to find something remotely fashionable which didn't look like it would be more suitable for marching up Ben Nevis or for that matter skiing down it, you began to appreciate the foot-binding art of the Chinese, no matter how painful it was. Even worse if you had a mother who, as mothers did in those days, discussed your enormous feet with the assistants who commiserated with the problem of trying to fit up a daughter with plainly abnormal nether regions. They would discuss these objects as if I weren't there before producing the latest in lace-up ginger leather monstrosities. Later, when I escaped from maternal shoe-buying I would cram my feet into size six stilettos even if it meant decorating my toes and heels with a permanent layer of plasters and being in excruciating pain every time I walked two steps. Still it was better than wearing small canoes. Now it's a joy to find that shoe size availability has moved into the range of my feet and that size eight isn't particularly unusual. The only problem is that my granddaughter nicks all my best shoes, but it's a small price to pay. And it could be worse. There could be a transvestite in the family with his eye on my best black patent leather pumps.

My grandmother would have loved eBay, because she loved a bargain. But she would have missed the cut and thrust of the face-to-face confrontation and nowhere more so than a jumble sale. She was at her best at a posh jumble sale – lady Conservatives or the lady of the manor letting in the hoi polloi for a bit of charity fund-raising. Stalls would be manned by timid ladies who, even if they weren't, were metaphorically wearing pearls and twinsets and were going to be no match for a determined bargainer who ate people like them for breakfast. My grandmother would approach the stall, pick up something and ask the price, which would be quite high because such ladies didn't know jumble sale rules – ie, it doesn't matter what it cost originally, no-one's going to part with anything close to its true value. Dirt cheap was the order of the day. My grandmother would put her best tragedienne face on and back away. The lady would then drop the price a little and my grandmother would go in for the kill. The item was, according to her, so old, so decrepit, so unwanted that she would be lucky to give it away and my grandmother's offer was generous in the circumstances. It never was, but the nice ladies would blanch and gratefully agree. My mother and I would stand and watch this performance, which rarely failed and was even better when perpetrated on a lone male stall helper who had no idea what he was selling. I've never been able to bargain, but the bargaining gene has obviously skipped a generation and landed firmly on the shoulders of my two daughters, who are both very good at it. I give you a scene. We go to a favourite jewellers in Kyrenia where the Turkish Cypriot owner knows us. As in most shops we're offered a chair, a drink of orange and, in my case, a cigarette and an ash tray and the fun begins. We're looking for a birthday present. So we start with rings, then it'll be on to bracelets. The prices are all in sterling and I resist the urge to shout 'how much' in a Victor Meldrew voice. I've already been told to keep my mouth firmly shut. I admire her technique. She'll look at several dozen items, some very expensive, some not so. She'll curl her lip occasionally, or have things put back because she's not interested, or sigh as she looks at a particularly highly priced thing. This is the flirtation period. The shopkeeper knows the game. So does my daughter. Then the real bargaining starts. He makes the mistake of asking how much she wants to pay, she mentions a ridiculous price. He raises his hands and says he has a family to feed. She reluctantly goes up a bit, he reluctantly comes down. I'm cutting this short because in reality it has already taken up three orange juices, five cigarettes and a walk up and down outside to catch my breath. Halfway through another English couple come in and my daughter graciously suggests he should serve them. The wife likes a particular thing and the husband buys it. For the asking price. They don't even try to knock a fiver off. You'd think the shopkeeper would like this, but he doesn't. He looks affronted, as if they've just robbed him of his heritage. He wraps the item, takes the money and barely acknowledges them. Then it's back to the fray. Now I'm pulled in. Do I like this? What do I think of that? I know I'm supposed to look as if I've just lost a fiver and found a penny and rent my clothes and plead poverty but I can't muster the energy. I'm hot, the sweat is trickling down my neck, I've had an overdose of orange juice and want something with a bit of a kick in it and I've run out of ciggies. I want to brandish my credit card and shout 'For goodness sake, I'll pay anything for the camel, ditto bracelet, ditto ring.' Somewhere along the line I think I lost consciousness because it is suddenly time to pay. Everyone is pleased, especially me. We're offered more drinks but refuse. There are handshakes all round. There's no ill feeling, and for the first time I really believe my daughter's assurance that everyone here likes to bargain. The jeweller shakes my hand again and points at his antagonist. 'Daughter"?, he says. I nod. 'Ah', he grins, and slashes his finger across his throat, which I hope means that she's a cut throat bargainer and much admired and not that he'll be moved to violence if we ever come in again. Not that I will, in a month of Sundays. Well, until next year that is. It's only when we get out of the shop that I realise I've just spent exactly twice the amount I had foolishly thought I would. And what's more paid it willingly, gratefully and would have paid a lot more if I had been allowed. We wimps have no chance against arch bargainers.