This is really messing with my head!

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For most of this week I was away at my place in the country, on my own. Of course in any place like that, there are always lots of jobs to do, especially at this time of year, everything is growing so much! So I was kept busy trimming grass in the garden, cutting down nettles along the hedgerows and all that sort of thing. Yesterday I was getting a few jobs done before leaving to get back to the family. And in the morning I had a man coming to look at some other work I needed done. Well the man came quite early, and we looked at a couple of things together. Then I finished my coffee, did a little bit of painting, cleared away a pile of broken roof slates, picked raspberries and cut down a big patch of nettles. Then I went to get a saw to trim some branches off a shrub in the garden. I went to the car because I had brought the saw with me and hadn’t used it yet, so I hadn’t taken it out. And I had noticed it lying there earlier when I went to put some other things in. But now I couldn’t find it. I had the back seats folded down, and I had put a couple of boxes in there, so I looked inside, behind, beside and underneath the boxes – no saw. I looked underneath the folded-down seats, in case it had slipped down there – no saw. I looked all around everything else in the car, on the seats, in all the footwells – no saw. I looked on the ground all around, and underneath the car, in case I had somehow knocked it out – no saw. I looked on the roof in case I had absent-mindedly picked it up and then put it down again there – you guessed it, no saw. So I thought I must have taken it out without remembering, and then taken it with me and put it down somewhere else while I did some other job. So I retraced my steps everywhere I had been in case I had left it there. I looked on all the garden walls in case I had put it down there. I looked on the bench where I sat to drink my coffee. I looked in the sheds where I had put the paint and cleared away other things. I looked around the places outside that I had worked. I looked around the bushes and trees I had considered pruning in case I had taken it with me to use but then not gotten around to it yet. But I couldn’t find it. I wondered if I could have had it in my hand when the man came (although I was sure I hadn’t) and then forgotten and put it down while we looked at jobs to do. So I went back round those places but there was no sign. I went back to the car and looked all over it inside and out again. I wandered around outside looking more carefully in case it had slipped into some undergrowth. But I still couldn’t find it. I thought I must be going mad. If it wasn’t in the car I must have taken it out, though I had absolutely no memory of doing so. And if I had taken it without remembering, then perhaps I had done some other things as well that I also had absolutely no memory of, and I could have taken it with me and left it anywhere. So I looked inside the house in case I had taken it there with me. I looked in the living room and the kitchen and the bedrooms and bathroom. I even looked in ridiculous places like the fridge. Then I looked again in all the places I had been and even the places I hadn’t – because perhaps I had without knowing it? At this point I was actually getting quite frightened; I thought I had suddenly developed dementia. And that is a very frightening thought I can tell you! How could I have blanked out part of my day so completely?? By this time I had wasted about an hour looking for the thing, and I couldn’t afford to spend any more time. I decided I would just have to leave it. I started packing up and went to the car to put something else inside. And when I opened the door this time – the fourth time – there it was staring me in the face! (the thing with the red handle in the photo) I couldn’t possibly not have seen that the other three times I looked for it so thoroughly. And I certainly didn’t put it there sticking out like that – I would have laid it down (as I know it was earlier) or if I was going to tuck it into the side pocket I would have put it tidily next to the side, not sticking out perpendicularly like that. And I’m right-handed, so it would be very awkward for me to put it in that position. If there had been anyone else around I would have thought they must have hidden it for a little joke, just to laugh at me looking for it, and then put it back, but there was no-one else for at least a quarter of a mile around! I don’t believe in poltergeists and that kind of thing, otherwise I really would start to wonder. The only possibility I can think of is that it could, perhaps, have been caught up inside the door somehow and then eventually fallen out and jammed into the side pocket in that position. The good news, I guess, is that I hadn’t taken it and done something with it without remembering, but the whole experience is still messing with my head! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2023.