I’m a man who likes a contingency plan.  I have a back up charger for my mobile phone and actually keep it charged.  I print things like boarding cards and hotel bookings as well as having electronic versions.  My passport and afatinib tablets stay in my pocket during a flight just in case the plane gets evacuated and all my worldly travel goods get burned on the runway in a foreign land.  I have spare adapters and spare cables for iPad and phone.  The iPad itself rarely drops below 80% of charge.  I also retain a photocopy of my passport away from the document itself.  Just in case.

I take the time to identify alternative routes home just in case my flight gets cancelled or delayed and I need to prompt an unhelpful airline to provide an alternative.  Or if I need to arrange my own alternative.

And then comes the classic. However many nights away I have I always pack an extra pair of emergency socks and undies.  Who knows what excitement I’m preparing for.  Maybe subconsciously I’m expecting to get lucky with Miss Middle-Aged Montenegro and hurl my stripey y-fronts across her parlour before a few seconds of excitement followed by accidentally leaving them behind and needing to replace them with the emergency pair.

What’s even more extraordinary is that the emergency pair never ever got worn.  The socks are an odd texture that fell out of a posh Christmas cracker one year.  The boxer shorts were the free pair in a three for two offer that are white.  And as any housewife will know, white male underwear is just a dreadfully bad idea.  So rather than wear these items they became my emergency standards.

And as yet remain unused.

Just over two weeks to that Montenegro trip, so you never know …

Efficiency