…..but this time it was entirely my own fault.
I’ve had a really busy week at work. I had an all-day project progress meeting at our Hampshire HQ on Wednesday, then on Thursday I had an “away day” and customer workshop at a conference centre near Windsor, which involved staying overnight, with more plenary sessions this morning. There were about a dozen people going to the workshop from the Malvern office, so a minibus was laid on to get us there on Thursday morning and back at lunchtime today. Unfortunately, the coach was due to leave work at 06:30 on Thursday, which would have meant my getting up not long after 5am. That’s just too much at the moment, especially since it was going to be a long hard day, and coming after another long day on Wednesday.
So I decided that the most sensible thing to do, given that I was not that far away from Windsor on Wednesday anyway, was to stay down there over night, and take a local taxi from Fawlty Towers to the conference centre on Thursday morning. Then I could get the minibus back to Malvern on Friday. I knew that the minibus would drop me off back at work, so that meant that I needed to leave my car there. I had arranged for a car and driver to pick me up from home early on Wednesday to get me down to the project progress meeting (I’m simply not up to driving long distances at the moment – I get so tired). So I left the car in work on Tuesday afternoon and got a colleague to drop me off at my house on his way home.
It all looked to be working out well, as the minibus drew up to work at lunch time today. I’d worked well over my contracted hours this week, so was planning on taking the afternoon off. My car was in work, and I had time to drop my suitcase in the boot, grab some lunch at the canteen, then head into town to get my hair cut. I reached into my bag for my car keys, and it was then that the horrid realisation hit me. I’d emptied my pockets as usual on Tuesday night, and put the car keys on the hall shelf, just as I usually do. But I hadn’t picked them up on Wednesday because I was distracted by getting a 7am phone call from my taxi driver who was lost, and having to direct him to the house. So now my car was in work, but the keys were still on the hall shelf back home!
I had to throw myself on the mercy of one of my colleagues who was also on the bus, and ask him to drive me home, give me 30 seconds to let myself in and pick up my car keys, then drive me back to work. Fortunately I live less than ten minutes away, so it wasn’t as much of an imposition as it might have been, but I felt such an idiot. I was so grateful that Steve was able to rescue me from my own stupidity!
