Wednesday – Wayne, our resident creative genius, handed me two pennies. He’d found one in the footwell of the passenger seat of his car and the other in Foot Locker.

Thursday, Nix gave me a penny that she found “somewhere or other”. That’s good enough for me. The devil’s in the details.

I also found something myself on Thursday. I was meandering past Hammersmith tube station when I spotted something shiny on the floor. I didn’t really want it to be money, because it was lunchtime and the area was swarming with purposeful types striding about carrying coffees. But sure enough, it was a penny. Damn.

There was a man hanging around waiting for someone or something, and I’d felt him clock me as I slowed down on my approach to the penny. I could still feel his eyes on me as I arrived at the point where I had to either pick it up or walk on, and my head started pounding with the feeling that a thousand high-heeled women and besuited men were all looking at me thinking ‘surely she wouldn’t pick that up, would she? Nobody’s that poor’.

I wrestled with myself, but for the first time in the project, I walked straight past some cash.

I only got about 3 metres before the guilt and shame hit me. I felt like a complete coward. So what could have been a fairly casual sweeping-up manoeuvre in passing became a double-back walk of shame and a squint around on the floor, all the while being watched by a man who’d seen everything. For a penny.

I tried to look grave, like I’d dropped something valuable, but not so grave that anyone looking on would offer to help. I found it, and with my back turned to the man stood there watching, I picked it up. Feel the fear and do it anyway, people.

Saturday, I was in town with my little brother and sister, when my brother Luke found a 2p and gamely handed it over.

Sunday – went to my nan’s house, who gave me a penny she’d found – shock horror – in Tesco’s car park, right by a children’s ride. There had been children on the ride, so it probably belonged to one of them. The brats should be more careful, shouldn’t they?

Week Thirty
How much found: 7p
Total found so far: £13.99
How it could now be spent: an Anti-James Blunt T-shirt

Monday – Nix handed over 3 pennies she’d found at the bottom of her old handbag when she was transferring stuff to a new one.

Tuesday afternoon, I came back from lunch to find a huge mound of assorted coins on my desk – a whole 66p’s worth! As far as I could remember, I hadn’t lent anybody any money, bought anyone anything or bet anyone 66p that I could do something.

I fired off an ‘all staff’ email to get to the bottom of it, but was met with a stony silence. You know what’s happened don’t you? The mystery benefactor has returned…

Wednesday night (last night), I was coming out of Bank tube station en route to the O2 arena to see the Spice Girls (brilliant by the way, but Geri and Mel B still hate each other), when a man in front of me spilt the entire contents of his wallet all over the stairs. Bingo!

I stopped to help, and he said something about needing all the money to pay for his train fare. As I helped him look, the devil in me started thinking of all the coins he’d inevitably miss, and I must confess I did look around to see if there were any high-denomination coins he hadn’t spotted. Annoyingly, the much more dominant goody-two-shoes in me found 1p, and immediately handed it to him.

He seemed disappointed that all I’d retrieved was a penny, and it took several seconds of me holding it out to him before he cracked and took it. He didn’t even want it!

Week Twenty-nine

How much found: 69p
Total found so far: £13.92
How it could now be spent: a pot of Protexin Pro digestive supplement for all large animals.

Hate your colleagues as much as Geri and Mel B do? Time to look for a new job.

Light relief

Still, I’ve noticed it’s finally starting to get a bit lighter at both ends of the day – 3 minutes more daylight every day until the clocks go forward I’m told. So hopefully before long I might start finding properly again, even if it means getting up early on a Saturday morning, making myself some Quorn ham sandwiches and a Thermos of coffee and heading out to forage for coins, hunter-gatherer style.

Saturday night, I did manage to find a little something. In the pub after going to see a play with Kirsty I spotted a penny on the carpet. No mean feat after sinking an unspecified number of large glasses of wine. (I’ve decided to drink my way through January.)

A modest harvest, but by this time next week there’ll be 21 minutes more light to play with…

Week Twenty-eight

How much found: 2p
Total found so far: £13.23
How it could now be spent: a LuxyLine laptop bag.

I don’t know about you but I’ve got a pretty bad case of the January blues. It doesn’t usually happen, but this time it smashed into me like a wrecking ball on New Year’s Eve, and has temporarily sapped my penny spotting ability. Not to worry though.

Owing to the spirit of generosity that’s around at this time of year, I have received a few offerings to ease the project into the new year.

Wednesday, Simon handed over a penny he’d spotted in the doorway of EAT in Holborn, where he’d just had an espresso (it’s those hyper-heightened senses you see. God I love coffee).

Also on Wednesday, Alex came back after lunch with a penny and slid it under my nose as I read the Sun. He’d found it on the stairs in our office.

Thursday, Alex gave me another penny, this time with the words ‘I’m not sure if you’ll want this one’. Turns out he found it on the floor in the gym changing room. Mmm mmm.

Later on Nix handed over a penny she’d picked up at Macclesfield train station, much to the dismay of her husband.

Week Twenty-seven

How much found: 4p
Total found so far: £13.21
How it could now be spent: A bottle of 45 Extreme Fat Burner tablets.

Monday, Simon (see the elf below) handed over a 10p that he’d found on the meeting room table, then launched into an anecdote…

He’s been collecting pennies himself, just from his own pockets, and had a penny jar that was full to bursting, so decided to go and cash them in at the bank. He bagged them up in approximate lots of 100 (his fatal mistake) and trotted off to his local branch.

Now, bearing in mind banks’ resentment of pennies at the best of times, the fact that he’d approximated rather than counted didn’t go down too well.

The woman cashier set about putting each bag onto the scales in a well-practised, if grudging, manoeuvre. So far, so good. But then the first bag was out by 11p.

This was an insult too far.

She picked up the bag and threw it back at him, and as he stood there mortified like a little boy who doesn’t know what he’s done wrong, she proceeded to do it with every single bag she found to be out by a few pence either side.

Quickly realising the gravity of the situation, a kinder, better-trained cashier came to the rescue and set about sorting it all out, while the other woman stormed off to the staff room and kicked the fridge (probably).

Simon was so overwhelmed with gratitude that he found out the kindly cashier’s name (Lauren, if you’re interested) and went back to the bank especially to give her a bunch of flowers.

I’m going to count out my million pounds reeeeally carefully before I bank it.

Friday morning, Nick gave me 6p he’d found on his desk, without knowing how it got there.

Friday, late afternoon, I was engaged in some important work-related chat with Kirsty, when I heard the familiar clink of loose change behind me on my desk, and out of the corner of my eye saw Gemma striding away (she’s tall, she strides). I looked at my desk and saw an Everest of coppers, which turned out to total 23p. She told me they’d been sitting doing nothing in her purse and she’d never use them. Ordinarily I wouldn’t think of money in people’s purses as a legitimate ‘find’, but her use of the word ‘never’ convinced me those pennies had to be rescued from their unholy limbo.

Week Twenty-six

How much found: 39p
Total found so far: £13.17
How it could now be spent: A bowl turning instructional DVD.

Well, I’m planning on staying indoors and eating for the whole of next week, so I don’t anticipate finding too many pennies. I’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and we’ll meet back here, fatter and owning more stuff, on 3rd January.

I’ve just been to New York for a week on holiday, and though the project was at the forefront of my mind all week, I didn’t find a single rogue dime, quarter, nickel or penny (I’m told they call them that too). Not even on Fifth Avenue, ‘the most expensive street in the world’ (as at 30 June, average rent stood at a staggering $16,140, or £7,787, per square metre per year).

Anyway, Monday morning I returned to the office, and there was a piece of paper on my desk with ‘Wednesday, Earls Court Station, Nix” written on it and a penny on top. Good old Blighty. It’s good to be back.

Friday – Maz handed over a 2p she’d found on her walk home on Tuesday.

A lean week to ease myself back into the project, but I may yet have an ace up my sleeve – take a look at this video. Must dash anyway, crows to find…

Week Twenty-five

How much found: 3p
Total found so far: £12.78
How it could now be spent: a kilogram of cubed pork (I’m vegetarian, but you never know when you’re going to get visitors do you?)

I’ve got myself into the little habit of visiting Costa Coffee for my lunch about twice a week. It’s very pleasant, and my coffee is usually made by a very nice girl called Magdalena, who is always friendly and makes a lovely cappuccino.

Now, because I love coffee, and Magdalena supplies me with coffee, I feel we’ve entered into a friendship of sorts, albeit one conducted mainly with the words ‘hello’, ‘medium cappuccino please’ and ‘thanks’.

Well, Tuesday lunchtime I betrayed our friendship. Sometimes, just sometimes, I get the urge to stray. And on this particular day my mind started wandering. I was consumed by thoughts of the smoky smoothness of a Starbucks’ Cafe Misto, and though I’m not proud of this, instead of the short stroll to Costa, I took the long, lonely walk to Starbucks.

Luckily, on the way back from Starbucks, I found a 2p, which convinced me the whole thing was fate, and I actually had no control over my actions. I was just a pawn. Forgive me Magdalena.

Tuesday evening, I got a blackened 2p from my little brother Luke that he found kicking through leaves outside a sweet shop. He says he actually found loads of money, but this was all I saw of it.

Thursday – Nix handed me a 2p she’d found in Gap while buying socks. Later, in a blog meeting, Andrew told me he had a coin thrown at him on Monday but didn’t pick it up.

Another new habit I’ve picked up is going to the launderette to dry my washing on a Sunday afternoon. This had been going very well, until one week when I went there at 4.30pm. Mistake. Though there was a sign on the door (which is still there) saying they close at 6pm, the woman foghorned at me that she was closing at 5, and that she’d been asking ‘him’ to change the sign on the door because it was wrong.

Eventually, after a bit of good old-fashioned heated debate, she let me in. But every time I’ve been there since, she bellows at anyone within earshot about how people come in late every Sunday, before lowering her voice slightly for her knockout blow – “I’m closing at 5″. She’s become my nemesis.

Well this Sunday, I was rushing home from town so I could get to the launderette early enough so as not to antagonise the tyrant-in-a-tabard, when I found a penny. Ha. I knew right was on my side.

Week Twenty-four

How much found: 7p
Total found so far: £12.75
How it could now be spent: A Mexican fancy dress costume.

As you can imagine, she wasn’t feeling her best that morning, but having spotted 20p over the other side of the back seat she knew she had to get it for me. It was just out of reach, and the driver was chatting to her while looking at her intermittently in his rear view mirror, so any sudden lurches across the seat would have aroused his suspicion.

She’s worked in sales, so luckily she’s a bit of a master of slick manoeuvres for the purposes of deceiving people. When it came time to pay her fare, she put her coat down over the 20p, paid the driver, then picked her coat up, sliding one hand underneath it to pick up the money as she left the taxi. Brilliant.

Wednesday – my little sister Kirsty found two 2ps near a chip stand in Thorpe Park.

Saturday – I went for a walk into Windsor with my mum, who found a 5p outside a rather chichi interior design shop called Anemone Interiors.

Sunday – I found a penny in the gym car park.

Week Twenty-three

How much found: 30p
Total found so far: £12.68
How it could now be spent: An Alessi Otto Dental Floss Holder that I’m guessing Anemone Interiors doesn’t stock.

Wednesday – Lucy handed over two 1ps she found on the floor of Tescos by the checkouts. I’m onto you Tesco, but keep doing what you’re doing.

Thursday – Nix gave me a penny she’d found last Thursday at Waterloo station, outside a pie shop, at 11pm. She tells me she was in a group in which she was the only sober one, but hanging around outside a train station pie shop at 11pm? The jury’s out.

Friday – I wrote in this blog 2 weeks ago of my need to go out drinking more so I could start bringing home drunken people’s discarded cash, and I am a woman of my word. I’d also been told that afternoon by a colleague, ‘come on, live on the edge’, and it so happens I’m reading a book called The Luck Factor which tells me to do just that. It’s very good by the way – the first time I read it I found a job and won a tenner on the lottery in the week after finishing it. So I went on a big night out in London after work. So big, in fact, that I ended up dancing like a shiny, sweaty fool and missing the last bus home. Not so lucky.

Anyway it meant I had a convoluted tube/train/taxi journey to get me home. After surviving the tube and train legs, I emerged blinking into the streetlights outside Slough train station, wibbly-wobbly and freezing by now, to go and stand in line for a taxi. As I found my legs and began to stride purposefully over to the taxis, I spotted a penny on the floor, sigh-smiled in what I thought was a poignant, satisfied way but probably just made me look like a drunken sap, and instantly felt the evening had been wonderfully worth it.

Sunday – my little sister Kirsty handed me a 1p she’d found in Windsor College car park by the ticket machine.

Week Twenty-two

How much found: 5p
Total found so far: £12.38
How it could now be spent: A super strong nylon dog harness.

Even now, as we enter the 6th month of the project, the riches show no sign of abating.

Monday, Maz gave me a 5p and two 1ps that her dad had found on his travels. This project is beginning to feel like a real friends ‘n’ family cottage industry. I may even design a logo.

Tuesday – my mate Steph, who sells video conferencing for a living, gave me a pound coin. She’d had a potential client in at work, and had been doing the whole ‘trying to dazzle them with a PowerPoint presentation’ bit on the company’s MD.

After her performance, when it came time to clean up the room (she’s not a messy speaker – they’d had a buffet), she saw something shiny right underneath the chair the MD had been sitting on.

A glorious pound. We don’t yet know whether she won the contract, but either way she went home with some of the MD’s cash. Tee hee.

On Wednesday, Lucy handed me a penny retrieved from her sofa.

On Thursday, Kirsty gave me a 2p she’d spotted on Platform 4 of East Croydon station, and later that afternoon, Andrew pointed out a penny laying on the floor behind an unoccupied chair in our office. A good week.

Week Twenty-one

How much found: £1.11
Total found so far: £12.33
How it could now be spent: Hiring the Swaffham Assembly Rooms ballroom for an hour.