I am currently having one of my working spells and was reminded about this incident, which happened last year while I was having a working spell, when I read this post by Helen P about her recent Friday 13. I am desperately trying not to have a repeat of this incident.
At 8.30 one Friday morning I found myself standing on our front door step feeling a bit stupid and as if I was missing something. Yes, I was missing my keys and I had just locked myself out of the house. Both my car keys and my house keys are on the same ring and were in the key hole on the inside of the door. Initially, I panicked as I thought that I was going to have to spend the day sitting on the door step, waiting for my husband to come home. We have made the house so secure. The side gate is padlocked. We have a burglar alarm and locked double glazed windows. But it was not always this way.
When we first moved in the windows did not lock. They were quite new so we tried to get them repaired, but the company that supplied the windows had gone out of business. So we should have been able to make a claim against the insurance company under the warranty, but when we bought the cottage the vendors had not supplied us with all the information that we need to transfer the policy to ourselves, which all meant that we had to pay to repair the windows. It should have all been so simple but it was going to cost nearly as much to repair the windows as it would to have new windows. Repaired windows would still not be covered by any sort of warranty whereas for not much more we got new windows which locked and are covered by a ten year warranty. Why am I worried about windows locking? Because if your windows do not lock and you are burgled, regardless of how the burglars get in and out, the insurance company will not pay out for your losses. That is why a few years ago when Cilla Black was burgled her insurance company would not pay out. Her windows did not lock!
There was no chance of climbing through a half open window. One of the neighbours had had a spare set of keys until a few weeks before when my husband lost his keys and we had to get the spare set back. But they were out anyway. I was supposed to be on my way to work. I literally had everything that I needed for the day, except my keys. So I used my mobile phone to ring for a taxi to take me to work and phoned my husband to ask him to collect me from work, in the evening. Arriving at work in a taxi prompted a few questions but to my surprise I did arrive on time. And the day which I had thought I was going to spend sitting on the doorstep became a pretty normal day. Now the 'purse' key for my car is in my purse, instead of languishing in my bedside cupboard and there is a spare set of keys to the cottage, hidden in my car.