Hope for the best - that's my strategy.

Now that's a wonderful ruse. The Abbey's announcement was worth millions in advertising. Everywhere you looked it was on the news, on the BBC and Sky News. Page leads in the serious papers. Very nice job, marketing department, you'll be getting your bonus this year.

The bank started the day by telling everyone they are going to accept five times multiples of salary fo home-loans - but by News At Ten, this was toned-down only for people with good prospects, such as lawyers, doctors and mole-catchers.

Their Nici Audham Gardiner said: "We are a responsible lender and we only lend what people can afford. We don't just look at what they can afford today. Affordability is based upon meeting their financial commitments with a margin of comfort."

Yes, you can call me a super furry animal cynic. But at least the Abbey's announcement has sparked something of a debate. But hey, Yorkshire Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland, Cheltenham & Gloucester, which is owned by Lloyds TSB, has already started to offer five time a buyers' salary to some very high network bunny rabbits. And Alliance & Leciester and Northern Rock will lend nearly six times a single salary if you're a cool cat with extra cream. Wow!

How can the average mole actually afford such a mortgage? With great difficulties I suspect.

And I know something else - from personal experience - that borrowers are much more devious than lenders think. When I came to buy my home on the riverbank, I was asked lots of pertinent questions -- but I have to admit I told a porkie about my credit cards. I desperately wanted this pied a terre. I needed three and a half times my salary. It was my dream burrow. So, I simply forgot that I had an extra store card for House of Molehill, at 19 per cent with £2,000 to pay, and another little loan for my new motor boat. So when it came to my monthly earnings - it looked a lot better on the application form. The bank gave me the dosh.

I knew I was stretching everything to get this place. And I was sweating for a few years. But, of course, now I'm delighted. My financial strategy was simple: cross my paws and hope for the best. And because interest rates stayed low, it worked out just fine.

But five times? Now that might have been rather dangerous for me.

And I have to agree with the spokesperson from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service who said: "Entering into a mortgage deal of this size is like walking along a path with a precipice on one side. Those who stretch their budgets could leave themselves vulnerable if they have a change in circumstances."

Then there's always the prospect of a rise in interest rates. An Abbey customer borrowing £300,000 on its tracker deal at 4.84 per cent would have to find an extra £530 a year if interest rates rose by just a quarter of a per cent. That's very, very dangerous to me. And if the interest rate went up by as much as a full one percent? Well, that might just tip me over the precipice.