Richard and Judy: Holiday hell but it could be worse
THERE’S always someone worse off than yourself, as the darling daughter and I discovered on Monday.
After half an hour of searching we realised the document was lost
Chloe, down here with us in France to snatch a last few late-summer days, lost her passport.
She’d flown to Nice from Barcelona after doing a job there, and as Spain and France are in the Schengen zone, she didn’t need to show her passport on arrival.
Pity. If she had, she’d have realised she’d left it nestling in the cabin above her seat, where an attendant had stuffed her shoulder bag before take-off.
Chloe only realised it was missing as I prepared to drive her, pre-dawn, to the airport and her London flight.
“Got your mobile phone?” I asked as I started the car. “Yup.” “Credit cards?” “Check, dad.” “Passport?” “Duh, dad! Check! Oh, er, hang on…”
Half an hour later, all bags upended and her bedroom searched and re-searched, we realised the document was lost.
The petty criminals broke into the elderly couple's car and stole all their luggage
We went to the airport anyway but easyJet refused point-blank to allow her to fly (don’t believe those apocryphal stories when friends airily tell you: “Oh, the airlines let you board the plane home if you have your driving licence or an e-passport with a photo of it on your phone.” Trust me, they don’t).
Cue a 150-mile dawn dash to Marseille – papa at the wheel because of a French wildcat train strike – to the nearest British consulate for an emergency passport.
The place was shut. No one there. Oh yes… the train strike… sigh. In the end the consul materialised, flustered and breathless with apologies.
But as she was processing Chloe’s claim, an elderly British couple arrived. They too needed emergency passports.
Chloe only realised her passport was missing on the morning of her flight
In fact, they needed emergency everything. Turned out that the night before they’d decided to pack their car in advance of a dawn departure to Blighty.
They plonked everything in the boot – cases with all their clothes, toiletries, cash, credit cards and passports – so they could make a smooth getaway in the morning.
Trouble was, the skilled petty criminals who plague the Cote d’Azur made a smooth getaway with all their stuff, after quietly crowbarring their way into the boot in the small hours.
Richard and Judy Book Club- The books we read over and over
The couple, a very sweet pair who were still trembling with shock, had only the clothes they stood up in.
There are two lessons to be drawn here. From Chloe’s tale, it is to always keep your passport on your person when travelling.
The lesson learnt from this is to never let your luggage out of your sight
From the elderly couple’s, it is to always keep your eyeballs on your luggage; don’t let it out of your sight.
And never leave your passport or credit cards in the car. For me, there was a third and slightly surprising (and wholly selfish) issue to consider.
I wished, for the very first time, that the UK was part of the Schengen agreement. Why? Because then I wouldn’t have had to flog all the way over to b***** Marseille and back, would I?