Murphy, a leprechaun gnome led a rather boring life. Year after year, he sat in Eve Stuart-Kelso's garden in Gloucestershire, UK, and watched the world go by. On a good day he would see some interesting cars; on a bad day, the neighborhood cats would pee on him. Then one day everything changed.

About eleven months ago, Murphy was stolen from his garden. His owner, who had inherited the gnome when she bought the house, chalked it down to mischief by students from a nearby University and thought she would never see him again.

Much to her surprise, a slightly beaten up Murphy showed up at her doorsteps last Thursday, along with a bag that contained a letter and a photo album.

In the letter supposedly written by Murphy , he said, he had gotten 'itchy feet' and decided to go seek an adventure. His quest had taken him 'across three continents, 12 countries and more time zones than he could remember'. When Eve opened the album, she found 48 perfectly indexed photos outlining Murphy's adventures across the globe. Also enclosed were immigration stamps to all the countries he had visited, which included South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, China and Hong Kong.

There were photos of Murphy, now renamed Barrington, climbing up mountains, swimming in the sea, riding a motorbike and even standing in front of a shark's mouth!

Eve and her husband have no idea who took their 8lb Gnome on the world tour, but would love to meet him or her. However, with Murphy not saying much, that is going to be a difficult mystery to solve.

source:Telegraph.Co.Uk