Pride comes before a fall

I was feeling so proud of myself.

I had got up early. I had got the children up early (or at least in plenty of time to get to school).

I had taken my daughter to choir before school (having forgotten about it completely the previous week - oops!)

I had taken the dog for a walk around the field, letting her have a good run and be thoroughly exhausted for the day. Muddy from nose to tail, she was curled up in her basket in the utility room.

All this, and home before 9am. Just enough time for a cup of tea, a bowl of cereal and then to go to work.

Perfect.

So I thought I'd tweet about it. (I like to tweet at moments of achievement, for usually tweeting only seems to cover the disasters.) I reached into my coat pocket to retrieve my phone.

It wasn't there.

Nor was it in the other pocket. Or on the side in the kitchen.

My conclusion was that it had fallen out of my coat pocket when I was walking the dog. I thought back to the point I'd pulled a treat from my pocket - presumably it had fallen out then and I was totally unaware. That was right on the other side of the field, about as far away as I could go.

I groaned. (As did my stomach, as I still wanted breakfast.) Reluctantly I rang up work and said I'd be late in, as I felt obliged to walk around the field again to locate my phone. I am the luckiest girl alive to have very understanding work colleagues. I only hoped the phone hadn't fallen into too much mud! I left the dog in the utility room, pulled my wellies back on and trudged back to the field.

Retracing steps to look for something you have dropped is never a fun task, nor is it easy. Anything looking black or catching a glint of light might have been it. I took a stoical approach and decided not to be too concerned until I had looked at the far side of the field, where I thought it most likely to have fallen.

Taking a short-cut across the centre I felt the biting wind blow across and shoved my hands in my pocket, wishing that I'd put my gloves on. That reminded me that I'd left my gloves on the side in the utility room when I'd come in with the dog after our walk. And then I remembered that I'd put my phone down with them.

I stopped abruptly, considering my stupidity. I had a dilemma: go straight home and check, or walk around the field in case my memory was wrong. (After all, within 2 minutes of putting them down I'd forgotten that I'd left my phone with my gloves, so what hope had I of remembering correctly now?) I decided that I would curse even more if it had fallen out of my pocket, so hiked over to the other side, looked around half-heartedly, and returned home.

My tea was cold. My dog was confused. But my phone was safe and sound.

My only problem then was what to tell my work colleagues!