I'm an inveterate skip-diver. For a long time our sitting-room carpet was something rescued from the Guy Fawkes bonfire on the field opposite the house (before it was lit, I hasten to add), while several armchairs and deckchairs have been given a second lease of life after being rescued from skips.
Other treasures include umbrella stands, bookshelves, picture frames, a bizarre three-string fiddle with a mica diaphragm and horn attached (which I flogged that day for fifty quid) and any amount of timber and slabs of marble.
Trouble is, once a skip-diver, always a skip-diver. A few weeks ago I appalled a colleague when I pulled out a 1736 King James Bible, with wonderfully tooled leather cover, from a skip outside a pub in Marlow. "I can't believe you jujst did that," he said, aghast - then, when he saw the book, "I can't believe anyone could throw something like that away."
Another convert made!