WE HAVE arrived at that age. I make that point in case you doubt the fact we really have a poltergeist in this house, which had been unoccupied for 40 years until a builder from Banbury bought it and transformed the inner shell into what is a brand new house.

Ellie has named the other ‘resident’: Peter.

He seems an affable cove, taking all things into consideration, and if he gets the blame, as I suspect, for more than is truly his due, he seems to take it all in his mischievous stride. One thing I do believe is that he does exist and manifests himself every now and then. I just think he may sometimes be a convenient excuse for the lapses in short-term memory.

I go downstairs with a clear mission in mind. I see something in the summer kitchen, or the dogs bark out in the garden, I am side-tracked and then return upstairs.

“Did you get the gigot,” Ellie asks, with the need to defrost the roast leg of lamb in mind.

“Oh no,” I reply, offering the excuse the dogs side-tracked me, but in fact I had forgotten the purpose of my visit to the basement.

I have always had trouble with names, which has been a difficult thing for a journalist. I have a great memory, but names and why I am looking in my toolbox, can escape me. I can recall people from yesteryear. I can picture us conversing, perhaps in the pub and I have this mental image. I can tell which way they were facing when they said something of significance and it all comes back, almost photographically.

But I am not alone in forgetting things. Last night, Ellie came into my office and admitted she was wrong. I had printed out a receipt and I had put it on the dressing table and she had picked it up and sent it. The whole scenario had slipped her mind a few days later when she asked me if I was ever going to get round to printing out that receipt as asked.

Even though on such occasions as when one’s wife admits she is in the wrong, which as all you men know, is about as rare as rocking horse manure, and should be greeted by the firing of local cannons, I did not set the usual significance to her revelation. It was just another example of short-term memory loss.

Peter the Poltergeist cannot be blamed for such lapses.

However, I do wonder. About a year ago, Ellie commenced to search for the sat-nav. She looked in all the usual places, twice, and one evening in bed made a list of all the places she would have put it. She then checked them all again without any luck. A week later she went to the first place she looked and there it was. Having searched there some four previous times, it seemed unreal.

Then Ellie brought two fans upstairs and put them at the bottom of the stairs going to the top floor. I saw them there and the next morning I decided to carry them up for her. But there was only one so I asked where she had put the other fan. She had not touched it. Later that week, we found it downstairs, but both of us independently had seen two fans at the base of the stairs on the first floor.

I tried to think of a logical explanation but was baffled. I opened a bottle of red and searched out my big wine glass. A little later, when seeking to pour the wine, the wine glass had gone AWOL.

The next morning, lying in bed, Ellie spotted the wineglass on top of the wardrobe. Only I am tall enough to have put it there but why would I have done such a thing and how, particularly as I had not gone upstairs between opening the wine and preparing to drink it.

There had to be a logical explanation.

A week later I took the dogs for a walk and then popped into the do it yourself multiple, returning with a water butt, which I took from the car, installed in the garden, fed the fish and was then told by Ellie as she called from the window that dinner would be in 15 minutes.

I cleaned out the pond filter and then remembered to check how the Test cricket was going. I came upstairs, sat down, watched some cricket and continued to do so when dinner was served. The rest of the evening we spent in the same room before retiring to bed.

The next morning I had to go into town and sought my wallet. I looked in my trousers, in the car, on the seat by the pond, by the filter, by my seat, by the dining table etc. I went through the order of things I had undertaken the previous night and checked each stage. No I did not go upstairs until it was time for bed; I stayed in the one kitchen-dining room the entire evening after coming up from the garden.

I often misplace phone, wallet, car keys, although I have tended to ease the latter problem by attaching a large Swiss Army knife to the key ring. They seldom get misplaced.

Eventually Ellie announced she had found my wallet. Upon checking where, she had to admit it reinforced her view. It was in the front room, which I seldom enter and certainly did not go near after returning from buying a water-butt.

After noting I had sat in my chair staring into space for about 30 minutes, Ellie asked what I was thinking about.

“I have not been in that room so I have come to the conclusion that Peter definitely exists and functions,” I said.

I was told I was preaching to the converted.