Found property

This Guardian feature suggests that what we lose might be more interesting than what we own. It's hard to cherish that which you can no longer hold, but we seem to manage it with ex-people.

This prompts some good news (nearly recent): the black cap I bought in Moscow, which went missing around the time of the notebook, turned up under the sofa like a hibernating hollow dusty cat. The notebook wasn't in it, like a dehydrated mouse.

This was got in Izmaylovo Market, bargaining over kopecks whilst being stalked by two large gentlemen who had earmarked me as a tourist (Vernisazh, next door, is where the real souvenir tat seekers go, and where I got my genuine rat-fur shapka on a previous visit).

They were then obliged to act as audience while I pulled my 'A ridiculous price!' face and pointed 'the walk away of disgust' directly at them. They looked massively unimpressed, but did retreat slightly.

It says on the inside 'made in America,' then, on a label tucked under the brim 'made in China.' But of course I bought it because it looked Russian.