The Shans moved back into our house this day last week, after having been out for almost two years following a fire. The place is currently full of boxes and crates, containing everything that was put into storage when we had to move out. Each box is full of surprises, things we'd forgotten about or didn't expect to see back again. But nothing has been as surprising a find as THIS little baby!!!

Mrs Shan hurried to find me last night, while I was reading. She was beaming as she cooed, "You'll never guess what I just found in one of my boxes!!" I was even more astonished than she was when she revealed her find, and words can't really express the way my heart lifted as she handed it over.

"But what the hell IS it?!?" I hear you all cry, as you stare with disbelief and confusion at a scrappy bit of card with very jagged edges and some faded writing.

It's my bookmark.

I'd been using this in pretty much every single physical book that I read since I was in university. You can see the 8th June 1990 date on it, but I'd actually been using it for a good while before then. I have no idea where I picked it up, or why I started using it instead of a nice, proper bookmark, but it had been a huge part of my reading life for more than 30 years, coming with me on every literary adventure that I undertook. Granted, I read mostly on Kindle these days, and have done for quite a few years, but any time I returned to hardbacks or paperbacks, the bookmark came with me.

Until two years ago, when I left it on a shelf in the house when everything was packed away, and forgot to retrieve it before the moving team hit that particular room. I was sure I'd never see it again, and had resigned myself to the loss, telling myself that I was being ridiculous, mourning the loss of a bit of card. But to my delight, the movers packed it away and returned it, so we've been reunited, hopefully for another 30 years or more.

Read on, MacDuff!!!!!