It all started yesterday morning when I asked my husband to put the bins out.

‘It’s the last collection before Christmas,’ I said. ‘We need to tip the bin men.’

‘Tip them?’ he said. ‘Why do we tip them?’

‘We always tip them,’ I told him. ‘I put out a card and some money out every year.’

‘How much?’

‘Ooh about £40.’

‘£40!’

‘Well, they do a horrible job and they don’t get paid very much…’

‘Yes they do. They get paid very well!’

‘But when we forget to put our bins out, they come up the driveway and get it for us. And they never complain about the fact that we don’t put the nappies in scented bags and…’

‘OK,’ he says grumpily. ‘I’ll stick the card on to the bin then.’

I drive off to pick up our cleaner - Irina the cleaner as she is called - from the local town. When I get back, the bin is out with a little buff-coloured card stuck on the top. It makes me feel happy. I love it when the bin men come on their round. They always wear Santa hats and look very happy at their tip.

I then shoot off up the hill to take the dog for a walk but, when I get back, the card on the bin has disappeared yet the bin has not been emptied. Someone has stolen the card and the money!

I come back in to the house and ask Irina if she has seen anyone taking the card.

‘You vant to know vat?’ she says, looking panicked.

‘It was there when I took a bin bag out,’ she says. ‘It was there I swear it.’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘I was just wondering if…’

‘You think I take money?’

‘No,’ I say hurriedly. ‘You’re not understanding me Irina.’

‘You think I steal your money?’ Irina now looks tearful.

‘No, absolutely not!’

‘I take my bag and tip it out for you…see!!’

Irina now takes her handbag and tips everything on to the floor.

‘Irina, please,’ I say.

Then my eldest son runs down the stairs - he is on an Inset day.

‘There’s a ladder against your bathroom window mum!’ he yells. ‘Someone’s been trying to burgle us.’

‘Ah!’ screams Irina. She now falls to the floor. ‘I no stay in this house. This house full of horrible people.’

‘Irina!’ I say. Then I go up to my bathroom window and, sure enough, there is a ladder leaning up against it.

‘You should call the police,’ says my eldest son. ‘There’ll be DNA on it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say. ‘Nothing’s been stolen.’

‘Someone stole the bin men money.’

‘Yes, but I probably shouldn’t have asked daddy to have left it out.’

‘Yes, well why did you.’

‘Because I’ve done that for the last nine years and no one had nicked it before.’

Eventually we go back downstairs to find Irina has calmed down. She is mutinously mopping the kitchen floor and obviously not speaking to me.

Just then the telephone rings.

‘Hello darling,’ it’s my husband. ‘How are you?’

I tell him I’m fine but that I would be a whole lot more fine if someone hadn’t tried to burgle us.

‘Oh, the Christmas burglars,’ he says laughing. He always finds this amusing because our youngest son is obsessed with the idea of Christmas burglars. ‘Do they wear Christmas hats? he says. ‘Do they have hooks to get the presents with?’

Then he reveals that, actually, it was he who put the ladder up against the bathroom window.

‘I had to come home because I had no money and I’d left my bank cards in the house.’ So he tried to climb in but, failing that - he couldn’t jemmy the window open - he decided to take the bin men money to pay for his train ticket. ‘Can you give them some wine?’ he says hopefully.

Later on, the bin men turn up with no Christmas hats on.

‘It’s seen as begging,’ they told me, ’so we’re not allowed to wear them.’

I tell them I am very sorry but their money has been stolen.

‘I have wine though,’ I say. They seem very happy.

‘Merry Christmas!’ they say.

Before Irina leaves, I give her the Christmas present I have bought her - some bath oil and a leather purse.

‘I am sorry,’ she says sweetly. ‘My English is no good…’

I give her a hug. ‘I love the fact that your English is no good.’

So this is my last blog before Christmas. I shall probably now sign off until January so - MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL IN BLOG LAND!!!

From me - Samantha/Lucy

PS things to look out for in 2009 - MY NEW COLUMN in Stella Magazine (Sunday Telegraph magazine as was) and my new book Lost and Found (Michael Joseph, £6.99) which is out at the end of March. It is the second part of the Samantha Smythe trilogy…

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