Stress is a major problem nowadays. I deliberately keep my life as calm and stress-free as possible. On the other hand, man is a problem-solving animal and a life without problems brings on its own form of stress. My solution to the dilemma is to set myself tasks both small and large, something where the possibility of failure exists – for without failure, there can be no success.

The crazy paving on our driveway had become increasingly crazy over the past few years with some sections heaving upwards, others sinking downwards. The gaps between have been seeded by some tall and persistent weeds and one or two small trees. A fortnight away during a wet summer turns it into an instant forest, so that I need a machete to reach my own front door. The landlord agreed to take action. He hired a trio of large Irishmen with an even larger mechanical digger to take the whole thing up and put down a nice gravelled driveway. They arrived on Tuesday last week and had the whole job done by Friday.

It is indeed a very nice gravelled driveway. Unfortunately, the large mechanical digger uprooted the telephone cable and cut us off from the world. I rang the telephone company from work on Saturday and explained the situation. They assured me of an engineer on Tuesday.

Another annoyance are the ever-growing mounds of books in the house. I brought around 700 with me; my beloved a hundred or so. In the three years we've been here, we have acquired a lot more. The smallest bedroom (a.k.a. study) is shelved, and we have bookcases in living room and dining room, yet the piles multiply. More shelves needed! There's a good-sized alcove in the living room next to the chimney breast, so I ordered timber and battens. Not wishing to annoy the neighbours, I couldn't do the work in the evenings. Saturday I was working in the morning and busy doing other stuff in the afternoon.

On Sunday afternoon, therefore, I measured up (to be precise, down), checked with spirit level and drilled my first hole. While drilling the second I hit a tough bit. Even on maximum power with hammer action I couldn't get through. I've had that before – the bricks used on this house were not high-quality, and have chunks of flint all through them. I put a large spike into the hole and whacked it with the hammer. Very efficiently knocking a hole in the gas pipe hidden in the plaster

After a short period of panic the gas was turned off and the hole sealed with a fairly airtight wood filler. Experiment determined that we could have the gas on for an hour before we started to smell it leaking through the plasterwork. We could cook, wash, wash up and so on, so I decided not to call out an emergency gasman straight away. The landlord might decide to do away with the pipe altogether – the central heating means that we don’t need gas in the fireplace. I called him on Monday, and he agreed. I explained that we were ok for the moment, and he arranged to have a gas engineer call on Thursday. So hopefully tomorrow we’ll have the gas back on, and I can get back to putting up the shelves this weekend.

Now we get to the next of this week’s annoyances. I’m not a morning person. I lurch out of bed at around 8am and follow a preordained routine. The routine is there because my brain cells kick in slowly, one by one, leaving me unable to articulate beyond a groan or whimper much before 9am. Part of the routine is to pick up various items (mobile phone, cash, bank card, keys, sandwiches and so on) and stow them either about my person or in my bag. On Saturday I hadn’t bothered with my shoulder bag since I was only going to be there for a few hours – I used a carrier bag instead. So there I was on Monday morning, short of time and feeling even worse than usual. I put the sandwiches etc. into Saturday’s carrier, trusting that everything else I needed would be in there, and headed off to work.

It’s a fifteen-minute walk. I don’t stop; I don’t talk to anyone other than a “good morning”. I arrive at work, sit down at the computer and sling the bag under the desk. Lunchtime came, and I looked for my sandwiches. No bag. Looked around the small workplace. No bag. Decided that somehow, and against all routine, I’d walked to work without noticing I was carrying nothing.

When I got home that evening I searched for the bag. It wasn’t there. Decided that it had to be at work and that I hadn’t searched hard enough.

Tuesday, I searched thoroughly at work. Definitely not there. I even checked the big bin at the back, in case it had somehow been thrown out as rubbish. Not likely – there are only two of us working there – but I was running out of ideas. Home again, and an even more thorough search. Under the beds. Behind chairs and sofa. Inside boxes. Nothing.

I did not stop on the way to work on Monday. It would have been so far out of routine that I'd have remembered, even in my pitiful morning state. The bag had to be either at home or at work, yet it was in neither place.

The telephone engineer arrived later than promised, but had us reconnected by 6pm. At 6.30 the telephone rang. “You’re a very hard man to reach,” said a voice. “Did you leave a carrier bag by the bus stop in Warwick Marketplace?”

“I’ve lost a carrier bag, yes. But I haven’t been to Warwick for ages.”

He asked what would be in it. I described the items, and he agreed that it was my bag. Fairly definite anyway – it had my phonebill in it, which I’d taken to work on Saturday to call out an engineer. Lucky really – it gave him a phone number to ring, not realising that it would just ring unanswered until we were reconnected. He brought the bag round, and explained that his wife had found it on Monday afternoon.

So how did it get there? I occasionally have customers sitting with me while I work bits of magic on the computer for them, but not on Monday morning. A couple of people walked past, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t stop. And why would they pick up my bag anyway? It wasn’t theft – the money, bank card and voice recorder were still there. Some sort of practical joke? That would only work if they’d let me know where it was. Instead it was picked up by a total stranger. More likely it would have been picked up by someone who would take the cash and throw the rest into the nearest bin.

I’ve thought long and hard, and decided that I’m going to have to stay puzzled on this one. I’ll add it to my list of inexplicable phenomena. The only solutions I can come up with are that the bag self-teleported, or God has decided to play a nasty and devious game with my head.