AM I the only woman alive whose heart doesn't leap when a message pops up on her computer announcing, "Win a Mulberry Bayswater worth £795"? If it didn't show a leather handbag, I wouldn't know what a Bayswater was. I cannot get my head around the concept of spending hundreds or even thousands on a vessel to fill with old felt tip pens, stray jelly beans and crumpled-up lists.

My friend Suzie, who snatches at garments in Whistles without checking prices, came to stay recently, bringing her new bag which she informed me was "a Chloe". It was petrol-blue leather and extremely touchy-feely, but even so it was just a bag, to put things in. My family and I tried to show appreciation to prove that we are not a bunch of heathens who spit on the floor and throw chicken bones over our shoulders just because we live in the country. We all gathered around and stared at it, as if it might start changing colour like a fibre optic Christmas tree. "Don't touch it," I barked at the children. "It was very expensive."

"Oh, it was half-price in New York," Suzie said blithely, "so I've actually saved money." This is the friend who, on buying a second home in Devon, explained: "If we have a holiday house we won't spend nearly as much on foreign trips. So we'll actually be " Yep. Saving money.

After Suzie's visit I wondered if my choice of bag might not be sending out the right message. Sure, if there's a work-related event coming up, I tip out its contents onto a sheet of newspaper on the floor, pick out the necessary bits, bin the rest and give the bag a good sluicing down. Yet I still suspect I'm missing a trick. This month's Easy Living magazine includes a feature on handbags, describing them as "the ultimate symbol of femininity". I now fear for my femininity. I don't like to think of it having unidentifiable crumbs lurking in its depths. "Nothing is more elusive, mysterious or magical to a man than the inside of a woman's handbag," Easy Living warbles on, which worries me as, when J plunders my bag for spare change, he is likely to find nothing more alluring than a crushed Ribena carton and a stale croissant.

Actually, I blame the children and their habit of stuffing things in there without prior permission. The whole "it" bag shebang kicked off 10 years ago with the Fendi Baguette, coinciding with the point at which I was more concerned with how to breastfeed twin babies in public without causing a major outcry. "You poor cow," a stranger would bleat, hovering at a safe distance as if fearing that coming too close might somehow increase her chances of a multiple birth. I could never have crammed the babies' spare nappies, wipes, bottles, blankets, hats, baby food and a two-litre bottle of gin into a Baguette. For that amount of guff, you need a vast carrier bag slung on the buggy's handles so that, as you lift your young charges from their carriage, the entire thing topples backwards. Bet that never happens to Angelina Jolie.

Happily, times have moved on, and as well as the "it" bag set we are witnessing armies of women carrying nothing more glamorous than a canvas shopper or a supermarket's bag-for-life. Even a plastic carrier bag seems a little less tragic when you have paid for it and re-used it numerous times. Still perturbed by Suzie's visit, I tell myself that I carry not a ratty plastic bag but a piece of art, which is slowly disintegrating over time, until the point at which Charles Saatchi will pay me eight million pounds for it. Isn't that better than some ostentatious handbag resplendent with buckles and zips? I was proud to re-use carrier bags - until, having dutifully taken a bunch along to our local supermarket, I realised at the checkout that one had been housing a colony of silverfish which were now writhing madly and dripping out through a hole. "Ew, there's a load of wee beasties on the floor," shrieked the woman behind me to the checkout girl.

"Disgusting," I shuddered, snatching my bags and beating a hasty path to the door.