Where did I put it?

Last year I mislaid the picture that normally hangs above the fireplace - I had taken it down to put the Christmas one up. I eventually found it hiding in plain sight in the hall- where I had swapped it for another one! it took months before I cottoned on to the fact that it was there! I will never win prizes for being observant!

I live alone, in a very small cottage. There are no hidden areas; the house is far too small for that. So where is the silver christening box that I bought for my friends first grandchild on the weekend before Christmas? It's only small. It's in a small dark blue box with the jewellers name on it. I know I brought it out of the car on the day I bought it and I know that I put it on the bottom stair, so that I would "take it up the next time I was going up". I only remembered it this weekend because the christening is this Sunday. It's no longer on the bottom stair. Or anywhere upstairs. I think it must have got thrown out with all the Christmas recycling. Grrr!

My Dad used to say, "if you look where it is, you'll find it." Obvious, but not much help! The balloon whisk I lost months ago turned up in the cupboard with the baking tins. It's usual home is the utensil drawer below the cutlery drawer.

It is when I am looking for something totally different that an item which went AWOL weeks ago suddenly turns up.

If you ironed the runner, what else were you ironing at the time, sheets?

I have lost my set of door keys and I am using a key I thankfully got cut.

My mother always said “Look in the likely places first, and then in the unlikely places”.

I find waiting works best. The answer usually pops unexpectedly into my head eventually.

If it were this house, the fruit bowl would be under or on top of some nearby piece of furniture where I'd carefully put it to avoid stepping back on it. The runner would have got caught up in something and been thrown out.

Nope, checked the storage box - no fruit bowl, checked wardrobes, drawer with tea towels even underwear drawer - no runner!

Your fruit bowl is in the place your Father Christmas one came out of. And the runner is put with something else you were ironing, husband's shirts?