I’d given up on writing in here for a while, but today was one of the most awfully stressful days I can remember in a while, and I have been on such a roller-coaster of emotion I want to get this one out. It’s only 6.00pm and I want to go straight to bed and sleep, I am exhausted and almost had to cancel a trip to the US for the Boardwalk Badness Weekend Party and lose hundreds of pounds.

On Tuesday I had to register with an Employment Agency for a job I applied for through them. I dashed out at 4.30pm and grabbed my passport and some other ID to take with me. I drove there, parked my car in a multi-storey and ran there just in time to see them. I had put the ID documents in my handbag loose, including my passport, and got home and dumped my bag down somewhere. I admit I have a bad habit of not doing the straps up on my bag (which I got spanked for more than one so far but it haunts me when I am stressed), so much so that I have just decided to go back to my old more secure zipper handbag (or ‘purse’ as the American’s call it I think?)

Next day the agency called me up to say they got me the interview with their client yesterday and again I needed to take ID, Birth Certificate and much more. I went to my documents concertina file in my bedroom and took all the things I needed, and put them in an A4 clear cut side folder. I put all of this in a black shoulder bag with my lever arch work experience examples. I got to the interview, gave them the entire A4 ID clear folder to photo copy and they gave it back and I put it back in my shoulder bag without checking the contents….My mobile phone fell out of my handbag, which I had not done up again, and ended up in the toilet bowl before my interview and I just saved it in time, dried it and took the battery out which was making an awful bleeping noise DURING my interview, but that is another story!

I drove to my current job this morning and saw that I still had the A4 folder with my documents in it in the black shoulder bag on the floor of my car which had been there all night; I forgot to bring it inside the house with me. When I got to the office I looked through it…No Passport!!

I panicked and had to leave the office and walk 30 minutes back to my car and I looked on the floor, under seats, everywhere and it was not found. I got back to work and cried a lot. I had already called both the employment agency and employer to look for my passport in case they forgot to give it back to me. I got a call back to say it was not there, they checked in their reception and office and interview rooms which is why it took a while to get a call back. I phoned home and got my SO to check in all the places I usually keep my passport and he turned the house over…no passport. As a ‘Plan B’ I called the UK Passport Office who said the best they can do is 7 days if it is lost and I would need an appointment but that was no good because I would miss my flight (I already paid £600 plus hotel stay at Heathrow, clothes, BBW party fee etc)…I cried and pleaded down the phone to let me in on the four-hour ‘fast track’ collection service right now but no, “that’s only for renewals not lost passports”!

It was 11am by now. I called the police and it had not been handed in. By now I was resigned to not going to BBW at all. It got to 2.30pm and I was frantic with stress and hyper with worry and I couldn’t work anymore and wanted to go home early. I was in the office alone so I called my boss on his day off and told him and he was very understanding and he said I could go home and look for my passport at home on my own. I turned the house over and as a final resort after an hour, I looked in a Tupperware box where I keep old plastic cards and mementos and must have gone into on Tuesday night to get my Health Card to take to my Interview yesterday. I opened the lid and there in front was my Passport staring me in the face!

I have NO recollection why I put it there, it never lives there and I would not have been so careless to have put it there, but I somehow…hmm..did?. It means that I did not take it to my interview yesterday at all but put it there Tuesday night when I was preparing all my documents to take. BUT I found it and I am going to the BBW party after all, anything else will be a breeze I hope!