FOR SALE: Huge old pine desk, cost us a fortune but yours for £450 ono. Comes with free electric carving knife (unwanted wedding present).

This, I fear, is the only way we're going to get shot of a lovely piece of furniture that perfectly fitted our former home, a Regency flat, but is totally out of place in our tiny worker's cottage.

It's so enormous it's made our lounge look more like a doctor's consulting room which, considering the state of our health during the past few months, is not inappropriate.

In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if the desk is creating some bad feng shui and is the reason we've all been so poorly. But don't let that put you off.

Our efforts so far to sell it have not been a success. The antique dealer who sold it to us 18 months ago doesn't want it back, claiming "the bottom has fallen out of the desk market".

Another trader told us we were ripped off in the first place but he'd be willing to take it off our hands for £100. Who can you trust?

Some friends suggested we try our luck at the Sunday market at Brighton station, but it's so solid that if we attempt to shift it further than 4ft it'll cost us £450 in osteopathic treatment.

Iknew when we moved house last year that it was a mistake to bring it with us.

We'd already worked out that it wouldn't fit into any of the alcoves of our new home. But I couldn't convince my eternally-optimistic husband that we'd regret it if we didn't try to sell it with our second-floor flat.

On the day we moved he realised I was right. He and his mate Simon shifted the furniture themselves and there was a great deal of cussing when it came to the desk.

Too heavy to carry and too bulky for the sack trolley, they had to slide it down the four flights of stairs.

The further they went the faster it got. They would have broken the Olympic bobsleigh record if a corner banister hadn't impeded their descent.

When it reached its final resting place in our house it was remarkably unscathed. The evidence of its journey, however, is visible on every doorframe.

So, any takers? Perhaps I've not accentuated its positive points. It really is a handsome piece and, as well as being ideal for those who work from home, it would make a superb shelter in the event of an earthquake.

If you're still not convinced, how about we say: "For sale, electric carving knife, £450. Unwanted wedding present. Comes with a free desk." Can't say fairer than that.

TALKING of what to do with possessions that have outlived their usefulness, someone I met at a dinner party on Saturday revealed how her mum used to turn old records into flower pots.

Apparently she would heat the vinyl discs over her oven hotplates and then mould them into the right shape. Very unattractive they were, too.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.