The secret life of lost things.....

I've lost my cardigan. Not just any old cardigan, my Luella Bartley cardigan. In the style of a twinset, a fine silk/wool mix of golden caramel with the little black, bat wing motif above the left breast, I loved that cardigan. It was the first new thing I bought after the great heartbreak of 2008. Something he'd never seen but that he, being a label junkie, would have loved. Ha ha. It was the beginning of a new me. It made my whole day a good day. I called it the cardigan of joy. Not only that, but I bought it for a snip at the Kids Company charity jumble sale, brand new kit, donated by the designers, all the proceeds go to charity. I also bought a Marc Jacobs skirt, £40 reduced from £500, it's no ordinary jumble sale, check out their website for the next one. I called it the skirt of happiness and wore it with the cardigan of joy. It was the cardigan that kept on giving.

Now the skirt's all on it's own. And the worse thing is, I don't know how I lost it. My cousin loses things on an almost daily basis: buggies left standing as she speeds off in the car, (after loading the kids in first of course), rings roaming free in bathrooms across the world, sunglasses, hats, coats hung on backs of long forgotten doors. I don't. And although the regularity of loss does little to dull the pain, she does at least have the 'oh-no-I've-left-it-in.....' moment. But this loss is a mystery. Frankly, it's just not possible. It was hot. I put the cardigan in my bag (red, felt, Vivienne Westwood warehouse sale) I bought Aspirin from Sainsburys Local, picked up my skirt (Antoni & Alison patchwork, pencil skirt, designer charity sale) from the dry cleaners and walked around the corner, home. The cardigan was gone. I've been back to Sainsburys and the dry cleaners. 3 times. WHERE IS IT? The bag is a deep, bucket of a bag, it couldn't possibly have fallen out, did some fashinista-felon sneak up, dig deep past the empty lunchtime tub of cous cous, ignore the bulging purse of pound coins, intent only on designer knit ware? Or did the cardi simply escape? Seize the opportunity when my back was turned, to leap out, arms flailing in the fresh air, and make a bid for freedom? To dance, unencumbered by a human body, in the bright sunlight before becoming impaled on a wrought-iron railing. Refusing to ever go back in the closet, fearing the day when it would lose the love it now enjoyed, banished to the dark end, no longer allowed to hang with Marc, Viv or Joe. Or worse. To be carted off to the charity shop and have to share rail space with Dorothy Perkins.........

My friend's husband was idly fiddling with his wedding ring one day, while they sped down the 405 in LA. Quite suddenly it 'blew' away. Gone for good across 6 lanes of traffic. They let it go. A year later, while holidaying in the Turks and Caicos Islands he found a man's wedding ring on the beach. It fitted and, dear reader, he wares it to this day.

Top tip: I recently discovered the soon-to-be-axed Six Music. I loved it and now it's been given a reprieve. I like to think me tuning in helped it not to drop out. Check it out and let Lauren Laverne make every day a sunny one.