Awaiting the change

I've noticed that the High Street banks' strategy for spending out of the recession is to withdraw all the five pound notes so that we have to buy things whenever we need change of a twenty pound note. The result is that people like me end up with thirty one pound coins in his pocket and a consequent list to starboard when they put their jackets on.

I was whingeing about this when Maybelle suddenly perks up:

"Oooh! I'll have twenty pounds coins off you! It'll save me having to queue at the bank again this week."

It turns out that since the council upped the parking rates as part of its encouraging-green-living-and-nothing-to-do-with-the-budget-deficit programme, the weekly parking permits cost £20. But the council's ticket machines don't take notes.

"So you lug around a purse full of twenty-odd pound coins?" I ask.

"It's no problem for me. I am an Amazon."