Any reader who knows me at all well may consider the sentence I am about to utter to be surprising if not astonishing or indeed confounding.

I have just concluded a very reasonable and helpful agreement with a bank! And an Irish bank at that.

Back in February the anticipated call from the lending department of the bank in question came just as I was about to leave for the last tranche of work in Thezan.

They pointed out what I knew only too well: that activity on the account had dwindled significantly and the overdraft was bumping along near its ceiling.
It occurred to me that the maker of this call must have been in one of the few growth industries in Ireland at the time.

Anyway, I informed her of my impending departure, assured her that I had a strategy for the future which I would reveal to my bank manager on my return from France.

So for the next three weeks I thought those cliched thoughts that one does about banks when times are getting tough: so now that the rain is pelting down they will withdraw the use of the umbrella, or, goddamn it, aren't my taxes being used to bail the ***** out of the mess they got themselves into and now they are going put the screws on me, by way of thanks.

But I kept my bond and on my return and made the appointment with my manager.

When we met, I outlined my situation, my plans, strategy and intentions which turned out not to be, you may or may not be surprised to learn, coincidental with the ones that they had in mind for me.

However we listened to one another and parted with my agreement to think it over while I collated all the information that, in my view, supported my way forward.
I knew, on leaving, that the bank's proposal made basic sense and that it was, indeed, largely in line with advice that I had received.

At the next meeting I told my manager that I agreed, in principle, to the bank's proposition so we teased-out the details of a proposal for the all-powerful 'lending department'.
Some time later the news came through that - surprise, surprise - it had been rejected; not out of hand, I was further informed but there were anomalies in my recent banking that would give cause for concern to the regulator!

Now I thought that was rich and yet a rather clever move.
No, they could not help in the manner requested but the fault was not theirs but the regulator's!
Now 'the financial regulator' in Ireland had much in common with Rip van Winkle - hen-pecked by the banks, he disappeared up the mountain and went to sleep and let them do as they pleased for the duration of the boom!
But now that the game is up and the banks are being scrutinised by a new and more wakeful 'regulator', the bank is using him as a stick with which to beat the client rather than the other way round!
Good move I thought, as we now all believe 'the financial regulator' to be the new messiah.

So I found myself back with my manager for, I assumed, the screw to be tightened a little further but as our deliberations proceeded I recognised that she was truly treating me as her client and was keen that an agreement be reached that would be of benefit to me as well as meeting the bank's (and the regulator's) criteria.

And indeed we did conclude another package but it required a further reference to, and positive response from, 'the lending department' and I guessed that its likely rejection would finally manoeuver them into the position that they had intended from the outset, where they could dictate terms on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

But my manager, who had told me to anticipate a response in two or three days, phoned me within an hour of our meeting's end, to confirm their agreement.

Yes, I am tied to the wheel (their wheel) - sufficiently to thwart any residual spendthrift proclivities left in me, but I do also have a restructure that allows me to trade.

It is the prevailing received wisdom – promulgated by rumour, the press and even many a politician – that the banks will not assist small businesses that were thriving in the boom but are now struggling in the recession.

So I tell this tale by way of encouragement to others who, like myself, may have believed this to be invariably the case.

And I also know that my financial adviser as well as the person closest to me, although they would be too polite to say so, are delighted that some financial manners have been put on Clive Nunn's profligate tendencies!.