Isn't it easy to lose things? Well let me tell you, it's even easier if you're not in your own home. Rosemary has been staying here since last Wednesday, because her flat is occupied by visitors, and during her stay has lost: her sunglasses, tooth-glue, invitation to a party with vital address on it, her glasses on a string, her purse, her keys, my keys, twice, her teeth, and the special homemade label from my Earl Grey jar, which is all making her terrifically anxious, so she's just been out to buy more anti-smoking mini-tabs, and lost them too.

Perhaps she dropped them in the rubbish bin while kindly disposing of a bag of dog excrement that I'd forgotten to put in the bin on my way home, then forgot to take with me on my way out, remembered on the way in, forgot on the way out, again and again?

'Oh!' cries Rosemary in a heart-rending way. 'It's so unfunny! I can't bear it!' while shuffling about the kitchen, searching desperately for her tablets and almost blubbing. 'Perhaps they're on the bench.' She looks in the garden. No they're not. 'Or in my blue bag. I don't know where my bag is. I don't care any more! Purse? Purse? Sob.'

'I'll give you some money.'

'Give me £10, not £20. I'll lose it.'

Then she goes back to her own home to collect something, but comes back feeling even worse, because she's lost a whole cat. 'I opened the door and it ran out.' It's an indoor house cat belonging to the visitors. And then she comes wandering into my sunny garden and loses a pound coin in the grass. Everything seems to be just tumbling out of her hands. Luckily she found the address, so off she went to the party, thinking she'd taken a birthday card with a butterfly on it, but when the woman opened it, she noticed that it was a zebra.

Do you think the darling Queen loses things when she's out and about? She looked a bit cold and worried on that barge.