Have you forgotten something?

 

Michelangelo

There are few of us who have not ventured out of our home forgetting something we intended to take with us and, probably, on more than one occasion.

Often, it is simple to return and collect the item, the one we conveniently left in full sight on the kitchen table, or hallway stand so we would not forget them.

Sometimes the inconvenience occurs when we are well into our journey, yet because of the importance of the article we ‘left-behind’, we must make a swift about turn to collect it.

I recall a wedding some years ago when the groom’s parents arrived in Yorkshire from Newcastle, only to find the grooms mother left her wedding outfit hanging on their bedroom door some 150 miles away. The groom’s father drove the round trip overnight. Bothersome, stressful and aggravating, but not an insurmountable problem.

However, there are certain items which can cause major issues for holidaymakers, particularly when travelling to far off destinations; like the forgotten passports or sundry travel documents. Exasperating enough when you are the culprit, but absolutely frustrating and maddening beyond comprehension when it is another member of your party.

The knock-on effect is often a delayed start to the holiday, the one which was to be a happy, relaxing, stress-free time. Then there are those missed flights or missed ships. Often half the party end up travelling ahead, the remainder trying to negotiate a later flight or transportation to the next port of call.

But what about forgetting someone who should have been travelling with you?

Never you say… oh, yes.

It is known for people to be left behind during the melee of departure. Sometimes, possibly because of overindulgence of alcohol, a medical condition or accident, but sometimes it is simply absentmindedness.

The situation is often worse should the person left behind be elderly, a child or even an infant. Nothing it seems, is beyond possible, even for the most experienced, proficient and practised of independent travellers… like me.

Without further ado, I shall own up to ‘forgetting’ a travelling companion, not once, but on several occasions.

The chap in question is Michelangelo.

Those who follow Wild Geese may recall a post from October the 1^st, way back in 2017, called ‘Meeting Michelangelo‘, which is about, funnily enough, meeting Michelangelo. It is where I suggested you would see Michelangelo appearing in many of the photos posted on Wild Geese.

While he has appeared in the occasional ‘cameo’ and I have photos to be included in future posts, there are far fewer than I intended. This is a situation I shall be rectifying shortly, starting on my next journey to Scotland, when we are visiting the furthest East and West mainland points, via the original geographical centre of Scotland, a town called Newtonmore.

Speyside railway, board at Newtonmore Station

Meanwhile, I have news about Michelangelo.

His hip repair seems to have been successful, although it has left a large visible scar. I think he has now recovered from the operation and is in good spirits.

 

Sadly, little can be done with the missing parts of his right arm… (unless you know better?) He does not let this disability hold him back and is looking forward to our next adventure.

The good news is, he no longer lives alone. Even when we left him behind he was in good company. Here he is surrounded by his friends. (Michelangelo is second from the right.)

I shall post photos of Michelangelo from the various locations we visit on our forthcoming trip.

If you have any ‘friends’ who enjoy travelling with you, send us your photos at Wildgeesetravel@mail.com it will be nice to see our companions.

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‘The Abduction of Rupert DeVille’.

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A funny thing happened on the way to Dubai…

Recently I read a post, or at least part of a post, regarding the Fitbit watch or bracelet, or whatever kind of device they are. Clearly, an object I know very little about.

Not that this post has anything to do with these Fitbit thingamajigs, excepting for the fact the post brought to mind a small incident which occurred when my wife and I landed at Al Maktoum International Airport.

Now, to rewind a little so I can set the scene…

My wife and I are lovers of the great outdoors, we enjoy taking country strolls and even take on some rather more demanding ‘rambles’, especially when we visit Scotland. Now, neither of us could be called a spring chicken, so we are not to be classed as expert ramblers or practised hikers, just as a ‘Darby & Joan’ couple enjoying some fresh air.

That said, we do often go ‘off-grid’ as we enjoy treading the less walked pathways and spotting wildlife in the remoter locations, or at least as remote as we can manage, weather providing.

Older than many we may be, but we are not Luddites and are not adverse to technology. So, when my wife suggested it may be nice to ‘map’ some of our walks and “see how far we actually go”, I agreed.

Later that day my wife download the ‘Map my Walk’ app to her phone. We first tested this app during one of our regular walks near our home.

However, this is not a review, so I shall not delve into this app’s ins & outs. But let it suffice to say we have used it many times since.

Back to the start of this story and our arrival in Dubai…

The Emirates airline flight, the landing, baggage reclaim, passport control and customs all went as smoothly as they should and soon, we were sat comfortably drinking frothy lattes before going to collect our car for the drive to Hatta.

This is when my wife turned her phone back on to retrieve any messages and to call home to let my son know we had arrived safely and on time.

Of course, there were many messages; the expected ones, missed calls, the annoying ones, the welcome to… use our network… type of spam. All the usual stuff one expects nowadays.

However, there was one message we found particularly amusing. A message from the aforementioned ‘Map my Walk’ app people, MapMyFitness, Inc.

They wondered how someone could travel approximately 5500 km, about 3418 miles in a single session. (That’s around 10,419,975 steps for you Fitbit owners.)

To be fair, they did say there may be a slight malfunction of their app, suggesting turning the app on and off again to see if it cleared the ‘glitch”. Failing that, a ‘re-install might work’ they said, trying to be as helpful as they may.

It came to pass, my wife inadvertently left her phone ‘on’ on the plane and Map my Walk, therefore, assumed we were on one of our little rambles… one which took us from Manchester airport in England to Al Maktoum International Airport, Dubai in a little under seven hours.

Now, I know we are fairly fit for a couple of our age, but honestly, I think walking that journey is just a bit outside of our capabilities… at least in within the time given.

Happy Travels, Paul

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