The left luggage ... found!

The bag has been retrieved, with only minor disruption to its contents, and a charge of £3.00 for the dubious pleasure of rifling through my smalls. Happy days.

The left luggage

I don't know how it happened, but this morning I managed to leave a bag on the train when I got off at Paddington. Actually, I do know how it happened, because last night I was celebrating with my friend, who'd just passed her motorbike test. Champagne on a school night can have this effect on the brain, and somehow my poor fuzzy noggin managed to forget that I'd packed up some clothes for the weekend, and stashed the bag in the overhead storage area. It wasn't until I was almost at work that I stopped dead in the middle of the pavement with the horrible realisation that my bag was probably about to become the subject of a controlled explosion. It's not a very clever idea to leave things hanging around on trains in the current climate, even if it is a bag containing nothing more dangerous than a pair of jeans.

I immediately phoned the lost property office at Paddington, and got a recorded message asking me to leave my name, number and details of the lost property. This I did, and heard nothing back. When I got to work I found another number and called again, only to get hold of someone with very bad English, who could only tell me I needed to come to the Lost Property office on platform 12. Not easy, as I had to go straight into a meeting.

So, the current situation is that I don't yet know if the bag has a) avoided being blown to smithereens, or b) made it to the Lost Property office at platform 12.

I'm now going to spend my lunch hour travelling to Paddington and back, so I'll let you know.

Apologies if you were at the station earlier and this caused you any delays, it's the sort of thing I'd be really annoyed about if someone else did it. So, if you're really angry, let me know, and I'll give you the mobile number of the friend who gave me the champagne, as really it's all her fault. I'm nothing if not fair.