Lost and Found

PANIC!!! That's how my day began today. I'm flying out to Spain tomorrow for a holiday and to see my Mum and as I went to complete my online check-in this morning (something I probably should have done a long time ago) it asked me for my passport details. I reached into the 'safe place' where said passport is kept and it wasn't there. A moment of confusion passed and some scrabbling around in the vicinity of where it should be and still nothing. How could this be happening? Usually with this sort of thing, I'm so fearful of something like this happening that I over-prepare, writing check-lists of things to bring, making piles of cables etc for fear of forgetting something. The first time I went out to my Mum's house for Christmas in 2011, I forgot my laptop charger of all things. Thankfully in that instance, my step-dad had one for his work laptop that fitted, a saving grace for my sanity. This time however, there could be no such get out of jail free card. You don't have a spare passport just in case, and you can't borrow someone else's either. Cue emptying of drawers, boxes and cupboards, checking in places that are so ridiculous, they would only ever be checked in times of mild insanity (or a spring clean). I looked under the bed, under and down the back of the sofa, behind the fridge and the microwave (of all places). Nothing.

I send my mum a text, advanced warning that maybe I wouldn't make it tomorrow. I was thinking up plans for getting an emergency passport, catching the train to my local passport office in Liverpool and wondering whether I would be able to get one in time to still make something of the holiday. I'd still got a return flight in a couple of weeks that I might be able to make some use of even if I lost a week of my holiday. How much was all of this going to cost? A new emergency passport would be somewhere in the region of £100 plus the train to Liverpool and transport to the passport office, a new flight out there - this was sounding expensive. By this point, I was a mess. Clearly not thinking straight, I carried on preparing as if nothing was wrong. I cycled into town to return my library book and did some washing up. I thought that maybe if I tried to take my mind of of it that I would have a eureka moment and inspiration would bubble up and I'd suddenly recall where I'd put it.

Alas, still nothing. By now I'd even asked my brother to check his car - 3 months after I was in it for Christmas in a desperate hope that it might have fallen out of my pocket. A long shot that didn't pay off. I managed to speak to my mum on Skype and she was trying to help guide me through where it might be. My mum is a genius. She helped me to remember that it wasn't just my everyday backpack that I used at Christmas when I last had my passport but I also had my daysack to take to my brother's. I stayed the night at his before he drove me to Gatwick at silly o'clock in the morning. Hallelujah! I ripped off my headset and ran to find my daysack. Opened the top pocked at there it was, my passport. The unbelievable wave of relief that flowed over me was incredible, like a huge wait lifted from my shoulders like I'd received the best news of my life. I rushed back up to tell her the good news.

So that was my day. I've managed to check-in and print my boarding passes without incident. By this time I was beginning to think that this would be the perfect time for my printer to tell me that it was bored of the current set of ink cartridges and that it wanted some new ones. I had fears of having to find some way of printing them - back to the library again hoping they had a printer? A trip to the shops for new cartridges? Rusting around in yet more boxes to see if I had a spare one somewhere? Thankfully it obliged and printed without a fuss. So now I'm all set. I was organised enough to get my Euros earlier in the week and now I just need to pack. I don't fly until 5pm so I can do this tomorrow morning and run through my check-list and make sure everything is packed. I'm risking taking my netbook instead of my laptop this time as I'm not sure my laptop's power supply would cope with travel any more. I hope I've transferred everything I need over and if not then it will just have to wait until I get back. I couldn't finish a post without a music video and this seemed quite fitting, enjoy.