When Linda and I first met she had a large collection of British porcelain figures made by the Wade company. These were not the cheap 'Whimsies' that were found in Christmas crackers and which can be seen in numbers at every car boot sale: these were the highly collectable and much rarer types: Disney and other cartoon characters, wild and farmyard animals and many more. Some - believe it or not - have sold for over £100 in the past!

After divorcing her first husband, Linda gave some of the collection to her two children and sold the more valuable items to dealers and other collectors. After we married (once we'd regained a degree of financial stability!) we thought it might be fun to rebuild the collection: the next five years or so saw us visiting collectors' fairs, antique and charity shops and car boot sales: eventually we managed to put together a more or less complete set, all housed in glazed wooden display shelves that hang on our dining room walls.

A couple of years ago we noticed that the carefully-arranged little figures would often move during the night: sometimes just a slight rotation, sometimes a full-on displacement. There's no rational explanation for this - there are no vibrating domestic appliances nearby, and the figures are all behind glass. Certain characters seem to move more than others, some have never budged since they were put in place - Noddy and Big Ears are always falling out with each other!