Countdown check

My iPad Countdown app tells me that it is now seven days 20 hours 10 minutes and five seconds to lift off. My iPad Diary tells me to check the Travel List. This is the standard List I use for every trip we make. It shows the various aspects that need completion from Go to Whoa:

1. Decide on dates and itinerary

2. Make bookings

3. Check Passports for validity

4. Travel Insurance

5. Book boys into kennels

6. Check boys’ vaccination certificates

7. Arrange transport to and from airport/docks

8. Suspend magazine subscriptions

9. Post Office to hold post

10. Get someone to clear post box and hold keys

11. Inform Centrelink

12. Newsagent to suspend newspapers

13. Collect tickets

14. Collect travellers cheques/cash

15. Check on cabins/seats

16. Check travel kit

14. Copies of itineraries to family

Those are all checked off. Good.

Some may regard this as being anally retentive: I am concerned about forgetting something. Have I ever done so? Well……. not really, BUT.. there’s always a first time and as the old saying, goes “A short pencil is better than a long memory!”….although, that’s never actually made sense to me. If you’ve got a long memory, why on earth would this stub of a pencil be better?? You’ve got to find the pencil – difficult because it’s only a stub, find a bit of paper, remember what it was you were going to write as a note, then recall where you put the paper when you remember that you’d written a list of things to do. If you’ve got a long memory, you carry that round with you like a spare hard drive. No worries.

I actually have an undeserved – well I think it is undeserved – reputation for being careless about where I leave things and losing things. Here is the evidence: you be the judge, bearing in mind that this is over a period of more than half a century of travel:

Abandoned items: Ghastly carving of a ship presented to me in Papua New Guinea

Stolen items: my wallet in Athens, two wallets from Rab’s handbag in Harare and Melbourne

Permanently lost items – all different occasions: one hairbrush, one pair of pyjamas, one Russian knitted scarf (I really regret that one), one windcheater.

Does that lead to a guilty verdict, I ask you. “No!”, would I think be a universal answer, so why the reputation of carelessness? Four separate items are at the root of this slur on my character:

1. I was on a business trip to Johannesburg and was heading home to Harare. My ‘little sister’ Jennie had offered to take me out to the airport, swearing by all that was holy to her (food and Burmese cats, would, I think fit that bill) that she would NOT be late. She has an well deserved reputation for being not quite on time. Of course she was late – traffic problems or some such feeble excuse. We dodged our way through the evening rush and made the airport just outside the two hour check-in required for international flights. I grabbed my bags and hopped out of the illegally stopped car as a security guard bore down on us and Jen tore off in a could of blue rubber – with my passport, air tickets and all on the floor in front of the seat next to her. One flight a day resulted in some atmospheric coolness when she came back to pick me up an hour later – no cell phones then.

2. The next two occurrences are similar. In the first case I left my handbag with all our passports, tickets, credit cards etc on the counter in the Lufthansa office in Munich, realised my error in a fairly short time and recovered the bag. No problems there. Outcome not much different when I left the bag on a seat at the open air theatre at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. We had a great lunch and afternoon there and ended the day by watching the free variety show which was good fun. We happily wended our ay back to our hotel and as we were deciding what to do about an evening meal, I discovered the absence of the blessed bag. I didn’t pause for the rocket I knew would be heading my way, but out sped that missile in my journey back to the Gardens. Where the bag was waiting for me to collect it. That provided the best defence, but I still copped a fair bit of a tongue lashing.

3. The final accusation is the unkindest cut of all. I love jewellery but can wear little in this anti-peacock society. My little peahen has profited from this and has some nice pieces that we’ve collected over the years. Most stays at home when we travel but the Millennium Ball on the cruise from Hong Kong to Singapore brought out some of the better pieces. Of course they were put away in their black leather case in the safe in the cabin. When it was time to leave the ship, I checked the safe – nothing there; I had my handbag with the passports, tickets etc and assumed Rab had HER jewellery. Errr…..not in fact. Thank goodness she checked the safe again and there, lurking in the darkness was HER jewel case that I should have removed. Pleas for clemency on the grounds that this was not a direct area of responsibility were ignored and the incident was added to the prior conviction list.

Of course I also have a Check List for departure date, not that it helps much. As my family know only too well, I have to check my handbag for passport and tickets etc even though I KNOW they are there. When we lived in Kalk Bay, my brother Steve would often take us out to the airport – while my brother Pad would usually pick us up when we got back. Every time, Steve would say to me about half way to the airport “You have got your passports, have you, Ter?” Knowing the question was coming and knowing that I had checked and double-checked, I’d confirm that all was well, but within five minutes, I would simply HAVE to check again to the mocking laughter of the family.

Oh! And I never mention the security pillow left in Mildura which was only discovered as missing about 100 km down the road. It wasn't my pillow after all!!