Freecycle Diaries: Anyone for tennis?

In the latest episode of the Freecycle Diaries, Natasha Lomas finds it easy to unload a last will and testament pack but can't give away a tennis racket, no matter how hard she tries.

I fear I may be evincing the first signs of 'Freecycle fatigue'.

Yes it's a great, big-hearted idea but in practice it can feel rather counter-intuitive to arrange a meeting to give away a paperclip, to use a slightly inflated example. And when the process doesn't go as smoothly as the feel-good 'changing the world' motto suggests it should, the whole idea can seem downright retrograde.

That said, where else could you offer a 'DIY Last Will & Testament pack - incomplete' and find someone keen to take it off your hands?

The "interested" party is called Jenny. She can't however get to my flat in the evenings. And since I have a day-job, alternative pick-up arrangements must be made. This is where things start to get a little cloak-and-dagger.

"Is there anywhere safe you can leave it outside such as a recycling box and I can pick it up tomorrow during the day," she asks.

Thinking 'MI5-style letter-drop', I name a spot behind a sack of unopened compost that's been languishing at the bottom of the fire-escape for years, adding that I'll put it in a brown envelope and tape the whole thing up in a plastic bag. The average secret agent probably takes less care with data drop-offs.

To my surprise - despite elaborate instructions and the outlandish nature of the freebie - the operation goes smoothly: I check the next day and the package has gone. I even get an email from Jenny to say she has it. I am discovering that Freecycle has a habit of confounding expectations.

Trouble starts with a tennis racket - something you'd expect would be as easy to give away as a freshly baked batch of cakes. And sure enough the emails roll in - "WOULD LIKE PLEASE THANKS"… "is this still available? can I pop in tomorrow to collect?"... "Hi there. I'd love the racket... Can pick up most times."

Decisions, decisions.

I send each tennis hopeful a mail asking who will be using the racket. In retrospect, this is where I stuck my hand up and asked for trouble. Much better to have picked at random.

A lady called Pauline emails to say she wants the racket because she works with disabled children, adding: "We try very much to do inclusive PE so basically a child with an electric chair and [who] has upper body movement can hold a racket - so they may use it or the member of staff coaching them." Surely a textbook example of the kind of person Freecycle was born to help.

I give her the good news and we arrange a Friday collection date.

Friday comes, and I wait in at the arranged time but Pauline doesn't arrive. There's no email either and, since I'm due to move the next day, there's not much scope for rearranging this rendezvous so I mail her again to ask if she's still coming. There's no reply.

The next morning, however, she emails to apologise for not making it and explains, at length, that her son was "robbed and drugged" and "found unconscious by strangers in Kingston" and "has to be the priority at present" (well, quite!).

The soonest she could collect the racket would be next weekend, she says, "which is how long police told us to be around and available".

Since I'm moving out of Ealing - and out of the Ealing Freecycle catchment area - in a matter of hours, I decide the only thing to do is leave the racket concealed outside my flat where Pauline can pick it up at her convenience. So I send her yet another email giving details of the hiding place.

Several days later - post-move - I check my mail, expecting to find an 'I got the racket - cheers' type mail sitting in my inbox. Nothing so simple. Instead, there's a one-liner asking: "Wont it look a little sus if i just go as when"… which I take to mean she hasn't picked it up after all.

Sometimes - try as you might - you can't even give things away.

Natasha Lomas will be keeping a Freecycle diary over the coming weeks - follow her progress on silicon.com. Read the first , second and third instalment.