KERRE MCIVOR

NOT ONE BUT TWO PHONES VANISH INTO KERRE’S PERSONAL BERMUDA TRIANGLE

Iknew it would only be a matter of time before my phone left me forever. The writing was on the wall. Three strikes and I was out of luck.

The first strike was when I left my phone at the bakery in the little village close to our chateau. I realised I’d misplaced it when I returned back to the chateau with my bag of baguettes. I wasn’t too worried as I knew the bakery was the only place I’d been to outside of our home base that day, however, when I drove back, the bakery was shut. What’s more, it was shut for another day and a half as on Wednesdays, banks, retailers and service providers close their doors in regional France. On Thursday, I headed off to replenish our supply of baguettes and to pick up my phone. The young lady in the shop handed it over as soon as she saw me. After much eye rolling and gesturing on my part to indicate what an idiot I was, and much gesturing and sympathetic facial expressions from her indicating that she quite understood and really, it could happen to anybody, I headed across the road to the butcher to pick up the meat for dinner. I selected two succulent chickens and headed back to base. An hour or so later, I found that I’d left my cellphone behind. At the butcher’s. Second strike.

The third was when I met up with two dear friends who’d whizzed down from Paris to Saint-Malo to join the husband and I for a weekend. Sarah and Danny live in New Zealand but were holidaying in Europe, so we’d arranged a catch up. We were staying at a gorgeous hotel – once again, an old chateau – and I was taking a photo of the pair of them against the magnificent backdrop of tapestries in the bar when our hostess came in to say our taxi had arrived to take us into town. We hastily gathered our possessions and headed off. Later, Sarah found she didn’t have her cellphone. I had been taking the photos and had put her cellphone down on a table and we’d left it behind. We weren’t too concerned as who would steal a cellphone? The hotel only catered to about 30 guests and there were just five lovely staff members. None of them would have any use for someone else’s cellphone. But when we returned, it had vanished. Everyone searched high and low, but it had gone. I blamed myself. Sarah simply doesn’t lose things. She’s organised, efficient and capable (as well as jolly good fun). It’s just not in her nature to be careless. Me, on the other hand … The moment I took her phone to take their photo, the poor thing was doomed. I am the Bermuda Triangle for iPhones. Sarah and Danny had to scream back to Paris to catch the Chunnel to England for the next leg of their trip and they had to leave without the phone. It hasn’t been seen since. Third strike.

So, of course, on my way home from Paris, I finally and irrevocably lost my iPhone. I was buckled into my seat about to begin the trek home, I sent one last message to my girl and then switched the phone off. And somewhere between Paris and Hong Kong, I lost the phone. The plane was still on the tarmac when I realised it was gone, but despite the very best efforts of the lovely Cathay crew, my phone had vanished to join Sarah’s in the Universe of Lost Phones and Individual Socks. Honestly, it’s infuriating. I was also reminded of the poster I used to have on my wall at boarding school: If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.

Clearly my phone was never truly mine.