Lost

We've only twice left belongings on city buses. The first time we did (or rather, I did), it caused hysterical laughter among the staff at the Lothian Buses lost property office. I still don't see what's so funny about leaving a chair on a bus, but apparently it was the best thing they'd heard in years. In my defence, I should mention that it was a small chair, in fact a very small chair from IKEA's children's range that was just the right height for my daughter to sit on when playing her clarsach. And that we were en route to a music festival class and I was preoccupied with getting the clarsach safely off the bus in the morning rush hour. It was only after we were standing on the pavement with the clarsach, and the bus was lumbering up Dundas Street, did we realise that the chair was not with us.

I phoned the lost property office during their customer-unfriendly opening hours (see the notice on the door), endured much ridicule, but a day later was able to collect the chair amid a final burst of laughter from the staff. And here it is - looking larger than it is, I realise now, but you just have to think small.

The second time we weren't so lucky. My son left his score of Carissimi's Jephte on a city bus recently. I phoned the lost property office every day for over a week, and then gave up. We still wonder why a cute little white chair was handed in to lost property, but the choral score of an early Baroque oratorio was snaffled by another passenger. While I can't show you the score, you can listen to the performance by his school chamber choir. My son is singing bass, and my daughter is playing violin in the accompaniment.