HEY, big spender, where have you gone? Not down the British high street or even round the out-of-town malls, that's for sure.

We're no longer shopping 'til we drop, as we used to do, and last month's figures for retail trading were down rather more than 4pc on April 2004. That echoes a plaint we seem to have heard with dismal regularity since before Christmas.

Trying to whistle a bit in the dark, store bosses have blamed the early Easter, which put all our holiday weekend spending into March's figures. Or, they thought, perhaps it was that April wasn't a very good month for weather, so we didn't feel inclined to venture out to spend - or maybe we were apprehensive about the looming election or even that we'd lost the confidence to borrow money against the assumption that our homes would go up in value.

As for homes, we're not buying those either, as the Land Registry's most recent figures show a 35pc drop in sales.

Not only are we not opening our purses, we're also being rather more careful with the interest on the plastic, cutting back on store card use and wielding debit cards more, though I'd like to think, there, that people had finally woken up to the stonking interest rates on their store cards.

Alongside all the theories on our failure to flash the cash come broad hints that we could push the country into recession if we carry on being so recklessly thrifty.

It could be, of course, that the great British public is slowly waking up to the pensions crisis, doing as it's told and saving up for its old age. After all, the more we save, the less we have to spend - and you don't need an A level in economics to work that one out.

In my own case, however, there is also another factor. I am still trying to spend most of the money I saved for a clothes shopping spree with the offspring 18 months ago and she lives in a city with many of the big names in fashion in its centre. Several high streets later, I was trawling through a large shopping "outlet" with a friend last week and we were both amazed at the number of gadgets, items of "home dcor" and downright unpleasant clothes we could bear to live without. This time, I wanted a plain cream summer blouse, a light-coloured structured jacket and some summer skirts (but I'd done tiered and frills first time round and am definitely too mutton to wear those lamb's clothes now). Sir, not possessing the hoodie which might have got him banned, was also with us, looking for black leather slip-on shoes and grey trousers.

Hardly exotic demands, you'd think and the failure to meet them was not, as it often is, explained by our need for smallish sizes. What did we leave with? A Portmeirion jug to replace one I'd chipped and a pack of baking beans. I think it came to £13. Had we all found what we wanted, as was the case on such shopping sprees until a couple of years ago, we'd have left after spending maybe £200 or £300 among the three of us and done our bit to boost May's retail sales figures. Who's got it wrong? Us or the stores?