My heart sinks as I open the envelope and see the words HM Revenue & Customs at the top of the letter.

One of the customs of Her Majesty’s government is to increase their revenue every January by asking me to slip them part of my earnings from this column.

In fact, it’s not until I’ve written at least 250 words that I start to be able to pay for the laptop I’m typing this on.

Up until then, my fee goes towards Trident or flu vaccines or the payment of rent and council tax on second homes that turn out not to actually exist. So as I skim the letter, I’m already as sure as damn it that it’s going to remind me that I owe them a cheque by January 31 at the latest.

However, despite the fact that nothing is certain but death and taxes, even taxes can do the unexpected now and again. I stop skimming and start reading properly.

It’s something to do with National Insurance contributions and changes in the dates of direct debits. Direct debits to HMRC? I don’t think I knew I had such a thing.

I go upstairs and hunt for what might be a bank statement, rip open the envelope, and there, sure enough, on page 3 is a line that says 5 March 2009 with a string of random numbers and letters next to it and a donation of almost a tenner. I look up and down the page at all the other entries, and realise how poorly acquainted my current account and I are with each other.

I suppose I could make the first move and start opening the envelopes and reading the statements once a month, but the relationship is doomed to failure. I can’t be doing with the tedium, and my current account can’t be doing with the suspicious questioning… go on, prove that I took thirty quid out of a cashpoint machine in Cardiff on May 3, 2010, when I wasn’t even in the area.

Oh, yes, sorry, after that concert at the CIA, now I remember …

I ring the number on the letter, confident I’ll get no reply while the civil servants are wading through their millions of tax returns, and someone picks up the phone almost immediately. Yes, he assures me, I’ve been paying them a tenner a month for the best part of a decade. No, he assures me, I shouldn’t have been doing so.

In fact, he’s surprised I didn’t notice it back in 2004. If I’ll allow him to send me a form, he can arrange for me to receive the £700 overpayment as soon as possible. In the background he can hear the sound of what seems to be a chimpanzee, whooping with delight.

That’s me. I’ll allow him to send me the form.

Before the money has even left 11 Downing Street, it’s already burned a hole through my current account and is desperately trying to find a new home for itself. Is it to transform itself into a city break to Venice, or to morph into a spa weekend somewhere in the Lakes? Could it be about to become a pair of boots and a new winter coat?

A small voice in one of the lesser used areas of my brain ventures that perhaps it could pay off the balance of a credit card, or even sit in a deposit account for a few months, but it’s a very small voice indeed and the rest of my faculties find this idea so risible that I’m pretty sure we won’t be hearing from it again for a considerable time.

I’m about to email my husband to tell him the good news about Venice, which has been decided without my even noticing, when the phone goes. I stare at it. This could be the dentist, with news about my broken crown and bridge. Or it could be the garage, with the diagnosis on the elderly Audi’s lack of lights. Or it could be the builder, booking in a slot to repair the extractor fans in the loft. I let it ring and ring until it stops. Then, instead of beginning an e-mail, I go straight to the Easyjet site.

While it’s loading, I reach for our passports and my credit card.