Now I could never be described as a practising housewife by any stretch of the imagination. Neither would I categorise myself as being one of those women who love to swap recipes and household tips but ever since I bought my Lakeland Banana Bag, I have raved about it to anybody who will listen.

Lakeland claims that by keeping your bananas in the fridge, inside the banana bag, it is possible to extend the life of the fruit. The bag provides insulation and helps to keep the fruit from becoming over-ripe. I don't know how it does it, but it's true - you really can keep bananas for a week or, indeed, longer without them developing those horrible leopard-like brown spots or even going soft.

I bought my bag from the Lakeland shop in Windsor for £4.99 but these bags are also available on the Lakeland website, although unless you buy lots of other products too, you will have to pay a delivery charge on top of that.

Despite being rather sceptical about Lakeland's claims for this modest looking bag, I duly took my £4.99 bargain home to trial.

I prefer my bananas on the firm/green side and find that when left hanging over the fruit bowl on their banana tree, they tend to last about 3 or 4 days at the most before becoming soft and mushy. I was very agreeably surprised to find that kept in the fridge, tied up in their bag, my bananas remained firm and green for about a week. After that, they tend to go a strange greyish colour on the outside, although the inside still remained pretty firm.

I was impressed. I was converted. So much so, that I've given my banana tree to the local charity shop and wholeheartedly embraced my Lakeland Banana Bag.

The down side (albeit a very minor down side) is that once filled with bananas, the bag does take up quite a bit of space in the fridge. Without its contents, the bag measures approximately 1 foot square(ish) but once filled, it takes up a sizeable proportion of a fridge shelf. This, of course, may not be a problem to those of you with large larder fridges but mine is one of your under-the-counter types so space is at a premium.

However, despite the size issue, this bag is now one piece of kitchen paraphernalia that I just can't do without. And it must have paid for itself over and over again in terms of the number of bananas it has saved from ending up in my bin.