Five Forgettings

My days are full - even when I don't have much to do - FULL
So full, in fact, that I forget things.  I used to be able to cope pretty well with a full and varied life ... 3 children's appointments, classes and social lives, plus a job, volunteering, running a home, and squeezing in some adult socialising too.

Now I need lists, and a calendar, and post-it notes stuck in prominent places, and friends who know me well enough to ring me up with prompts.  Yet things still get missed or left behind and even when I remember, I'm almost always late!

Take for example holidays.  We all make packing lists so that we don't arrive with three pairs of trousers and no shirts, or with stout, sensible shoes and no sandals ... I make lists too and still things go wrong:

Photo by JoesSistah on Flickr

• You'd think it was a simple matter to go on holiday to the Isle of Wight by car.  Well it is - and so easy to pack ALL you need for a toddler and a baby at the beach - just throw it into the boot of the car.  Wellies and buckets and spades too: you never know what the British Summer will bring.  Trouble was, I forgot to load up anyone's coats; they were all still piled in our hallway ... and it poured for half the holiday!

• I got better at packing for our family after that.  But began forgetting to apply the same care to my own suitcase.  The first time we went to Disneyland back in 2001 I forgot to pack any bras - and, being considerably slimmer then, I didn't happen to be wearing one when we left!  Not really a problem ... until you go onto the white water rapid rides - or rather after you go onto the white water rapid rides!

• Three years later we returned to Disney and believe you me, I had bras a-plenty!  Only I forgot to pack any spare knickers.  Yes, luckily I was wearing a pair for travelling.  Our lovely villa was not in an area well blessed with clothing stores - and the novelty XXXL knickers covered in Pooh (Bear!) that were available in the local gift stores weren't quite right either.  My one and only pair of briefs were washed and dried nightly and rather faded and threadbare when we returned to the UK three weeks later!

• Even when I pack my bags properly, I don't always manage to bring them with me.  I was on my way back to the UK from my home in Belgium one year and took the train from Brussels to Zaventem airport.  As the ticket inspector approached, I looked down and realised that I had my suitcase but my rucksack, containing plane ticket and passport, were still standing on the platform!  Oh dear!  I didn't have time before my flight to go back and get it out of the station Lost Property where some kind soul had taken it.  Thanks to the lovely ladies at the British Caledonian desk we got it checked out of Lost Property and back onto the airport train.  Incredibly nothing was missing from my rucksack when I finally got it back, but unfortunately my flight was long gone. 

Photo by Stéfan on Flickr

• My most spectacular holiday fail was forgetting the way to the airport car park having dropped my Soon-To-Be-Fiancé off with the suitcases, tickets, passports etc as we were already late for check-in.  I ended up driving several miles down the motorway before finding a junction allowing me to get back to the airport.  STB-Fiancé was nowhere to be seen so I managed to blag my way (in a foreign language, this being Schiphol!) from the empty Check-in Desk, through Departures, past Passport Control (with NO passport) and raced to the departure gate at top speed.  I made it there just in time ... to see the plane reversing away!!  It was then that I discovered that STB-Fiancé was NOT on the plane, and, although he'd somehow been allowed to check us both in without me being present, he was now waiting somewhere on the other side of Passport Control and Customs!  More rather long-winded explanations to bemused officials followed before I managed to get back out of the Departures (or was it now Arrivals?) area without so much as name badge to identify me.  STB-Fiancé was duly found, we wangled a place on a later flight and reconnected with our luggage in Paris.  Despite everything, later that weekend STB-Fiancé proposed so this particular tale had a very happy ending ♥

This post was brought to you courtesy of Sian's Storytelling Sundays (a first Sunday of the month storytelling phenomenon) - full details and more stories here.