Back in November it dissapeared, I looked in all the usual places and did all the relevant back-tracking but accepted it had either got nicked (un-likely) or it fell out of my pocket into the snow somewhere on the farm (more likely).
At the weekend I was clearing out the chickens indoor pen, about half a ton of straw and poop - and I found it at the bottom. It must have fallen out of my jacket pocket when I was leaning down collecting eggs.
Apart from being dirty (I think I'll replace the earphones

), scratched a bit by chicky claws and a few lines of dead pixels (maybe from freezing over the winter) it still works. In fact, the battery still had a little power and it carried on playing where it had left off!
It's now over 4 years old and still going strong. Any other tests I should put it through? Should I let Apple know? They may even send me a new one anyway for sharing the good news