Thanks to the new recycling regime (plastic in the white bag, papers in the green bag, bottles in the black box, food waste in the brown caddy thing) it wasn't as messy a job as it might have been a few weeks ago.

It was hardly pleasant, though, and not my first choice of options for passing the time on a Sunday morning.

There were still hideous hazards to contend with; the fluff and muck from the inside of the vacuum cleaner, the foil cartons bearing traces of the previous evening's chicken korma (should I have recycled those?) the trappings of several waste paper baskets throughout the house and a smattering of general detritus.

My quest? To find a packet of buttons I had bought to sew on something cute and pale blue I had knitted for my niece's new baby.

Hardly the Koh-I-Noor diamond or a Rolex watch, I grant you. Not a tiara inherited from great Aunt Agatha or even a set of precious bone-handled fish knives.

A simple pack of buttons. The thing was though they were the perfect set, chosen specifically for the purpose.

They had travelled home in a small plastic bag, lived on top of the chest by a pile of sewing and knitting stuff for several days and then, well, they had disappeared.

After searching in what I thought were obvious places, I concluded I must have chucked them in the bin.

But the search proved futile and so I ended up driving back to Halifax to buy a replacement set.

And guess what (cue spooky music), two days later they turned up. On the chest. Next to the sewing and knitting stuff. Exactly where I had left them several days earlier.

Now this is not the first time this has happened. In the past few weeks I have "lost" several items – most of which have turned up (actually I am still missing a pencil case and a grey cardigan.)

But how can you explain things going missing and then turning up again?
Have I got a poltergeist in the house? It does happen.

A friend suggested (unkindly, I thought) that it was me and that I was getting forgetful. "It'll be the menopause. It makes you forget things," she said.

"Sometimes I go upstairs and then forget what I have gone up for."

Ah, well, I told her, that happens to everyone. But things actually going missing, surely that's a different story.?

I thought about calling in the TV crew of Most Haunted. They are always appealing for people to come forward with spooky stories.

I was going to ring. But then I lost the number.