Just before we left our last house I cut the front hedge. As always some of the clippings fell into our neighbour’s garden. Having picked them up I noticed his path was a mess so, as he is virtually housebound, I brushed from his gate to his front door and gathering up all the old leaves, twigs and path crap found a £20 note.

It was crispy dry and wrinkled, had obviously been there a long time. My first impulse was to pocket it but then I thought, Maybe this has been the cause of a long dispute between my grumpy neighbour and some delivery person, I left it out for you. Well I never found it. That sort of thing.

So I knocked on his door, waited while he struggled into the bleary glass, unbolted, dechained, opened up.

Yes?

I found this.

Well you’re quids in, he said, taking the note from me and shutting the door.

It was an absurd thing to say, I wasn’t quids in, he was. He didn’t even thank me. I regretted not pocketing the note, but consoled myself by thinking to have done so would have been bad karma, I’d have been uncomfortable with whatever I spent the note on. Then forgot about it. After a day or so.

Today, a couple of months later, I cut back the shrubs in front of our new place. And there, crispy dry and wrinkled, were two ten pound notes.

I put them in my pocket, karma in Yorkshire, vipaka in Manchester.