The Case of the Missing Lid

Early this year one of our neighboring plot holders gave us what appeared to be a rather superior compostor.  It was, in fact, the upper part of a Green Cone, a double insulted cone which can "digest" almost all food waste produced by a normal household.  To function effectively the Green Cone has a lower basket installed below ground level, ours doesn't.  It does, however, have a smart, fitted green cap - at least it did, until a few days after we had taken possession, when it vanished.  Our first thought was that it might have blown off, but we could not find it lying around, then we wondered if somebody else had a similar cone and might have "borrowed" our lid, but once again we drew a blank.  Then we thought that perhaps a fox had taken it - unlikely as this sounds we know from experience that foxes do move unlikely things around.  For some years we were finding golf balls mysteriously deposited on our front step, singles, double sand sometimes as many as three per night.  I grew paranoid thinking it was a secret sign left by a roving tramp.  But no, it was a fox who helped itself to the balls left around his garden by one of our neighbors who practised his putting at home. But, I digress.
Despite a thorough hunt there was no sign of our missing lid and we had given up hope of ever seeing it again when it turned up, sitting under a flowerpot in the middle of an adjacent plot. al the more mysterious as it has a list of instructions pasted on the inside and so could not possibly me mistaken for anything other than what it is.  So, now we keep a brick on it.