Everything going pearshaped....

Now I am incredibly careful when it comes to the security of my belongings to the point of being anal over always knowing where my bag, my purses, my camera and my phone are whenever I am travelling. I am systematic in my organisation, a trait I suppose of being a Virgo, so I couldn’t quite believe that my credit card purse wasn’t where it always was - in a pocket at the bottom of my bag, safe and secure. I emptied my bag out completely, laying everything out on the bed in front of me but still I kept peering inside willing the purse to appear but after ten minutes of looking meticulously in every place it could conceivably be I accepted at last that I just didn’t have it. I wracked my brains to think where I had last had it and was almost certain I had put both purses – my coin purse and my card purse in alternate pockets when I got out of the mini bus at the first stop to go to the loo. I thought about whether it might have fallen out of my trousers at that point but was almost certain it hadn’t and so I decided it had to be somewhere in the minibus. I remembered with a start I had let the bag out of my sight for about half a minute whilst I was on the phone at the guesthouse wrangling about the minibus and I started to doubt whether I had really had my purse on the bus and whether it was possible that it had been stolen instead. The more I thought about it, the more I started to doubt my memory and the more I became uncertain about when I had last seen it. Whatever had happened to it, I knew the last time I could say I had seen it with any conviction was more than four hours ago and as I paced up and down the room thinking about what to do I felt the last remaining hopes for my holiday being cruelly taken from me. I imagined thousands of pounds in Sky TV instalments and bookings for luxury holidays being made in my name as I was pacing up and down the room and decided a plan of action was called for. I called Town Hoppers first to see if they had found the purse on the bus but they told me their drivers always checked the bus after the final customer had been dropped and he had not rung to say he had found anything. I decided I had to assume my purse had been stolen by some ingenious thief who had either managed to get it out of my trousers (no mean feat without me noticing given how damn tight they’ve become) or out of the pocket at the bottom of my bag ignoring in the process my other more accessible coin purse, my lap top, my phone and my camera. Logic told me it didn’t seem likely but I wasn’t sure I could take the chance especially as the bus company told me they didn’t have it. I sat at the table in my room and made a list of all the cards I’d had with me and started to call the companies in the UK to cancel the cards. But I had nearly a week ahead of me and without my cards I was b******d so I needed to be able to get some money to supplement the small amount of cash I currently had and to pay for the many activities I intended to do. Getting me one thousand pounds on an emergency payment was straightforward I was told by both Amex and Barclaycard via Western Union. It would have to be Tuesday (now it was Friday evening, 9.30pm and Monday was a public holiday in Namibia just like in the UK) but it could be done. I felt slightly more relaxed. I could live on a thousand for the week easily, and still do all the activities I wanted. I’d just have to do them over Tuesday and Wednesday rather than over the weekend. I had the equivalent of sixty quid in cash on me which wasn’t a fortune certainly but could last me three days if I took it easy. I checked that the payment was really feasible and decided to let American Express sort it out while I cancelled the rest of my cards. It was late by the time I finished, nearly half past eleven and too late to go out for dinner. I’d hadn’t eaten all the food I’d bought at the supermarket earlier and so as I made the calls, I ate the ham salad sandwich and ate the bag of crisps I had left. It wasn’t exactly a gastronomic delight but tomorrow night I was booked into The Tug, the best seafood restaurant in town in a great location right on the jetty and I placated myself with the thought of eating a vast and expensive seafood platter washed down by some premier cru South African white wine. The sandwich wasn’t at it best anymore so I threw half of it away and as a final little treat opened the Ritter Sport Peppermint and ate a couple of squares. Ready for bed and somewhat reconciled to the position of losing my dinner and having to put my activities back a bit I didn’t expect the phone to ring just before Midnight. It was American Express ringing to tell that Western Union didn’t operate in Namibia and they earliest they could get money to me was five working days. Five working days meant the Monday after I’d already gone home. I sat with the phone up against my ear listening to what she was saying and feeling the colour drain out of my face. I’d cancelled all my cards, I had six days to go and I had sixty quid in funds.