You would think I would have learnt my lesson by now, but I have committed this sin on THREE separate occasions.  Usually, I’m quite an organised traveller.  Whilst I might leave my packing to the last minute (mainly because I’m usually waiting for my clothes to dry after a last minute laundry flurry!) but I do like to write a list.  And so, it’s quite perplexing that I can so easily – and repeatedly – forget my electrical adaptors.

The first time I did it, I was on my way to Japan and on this occasion, it wasn’t so much that I forgot, more that I was expecting them to be available at the airport.  Except they weren’t.  So there I was in Tokyo watching the empty battery icon flashing on my camera, thinking what the hell am I going to do now?  Luckily, a local pointed me in the direction of a six-floor high electrical store that sold every single piece of electrical apparatus that you could ever imagine.  Problem solved.

So it was almost shocking to find myself in Italy without my trusty adaptor a couple of trips later.  I was on my own this time and having only a few hours in Rome before I had to jump on a train to Naples, I opted for a hearty Italian meal instead of finding an electrical store.  Great plan.  Except then I was in Naples, terrified by the book I’d read on the train that basically described Naples as a crime-ridden hellhole and knowing that I was heading off on a hiking holiday the next day.  By some sort of divine intervention, there was a weird little electrical store beneath the train station concourse.  I bought the very last one.  I swore I would never put myself through this pain again.

Except I did.  On our trip to Scotland last June, we had arrived in Glasgow, slept off our jetlag and driven up to Glencoe before I realised I didn’t have my adaptor.  Again.  WHEN WILL I EVER LEARN?  There was a bigger problem, though:  we were heading for even more remote country.  The following day, we hopped on a boat to Knoydart where there are literally no shops at all.  By this stage, my phone (and therefore my alarm clock) was dead.  I had to let my hair air dry (oh the horror) and the camera battery was getting desperately low.  What an idiot, I said to myself.  What an idiot.  (Don’t worry, it didn’t stop me from truly loving Knoydart – check out my previous post on this wondrous place)

After our boat dropped us back at the Mallaig wharf, from where we were catching the ferry to Skye (cue fervent humming of “The Skye Boat Song), we had about forty minutes to kill.  We poked our noses into the Co-op.  We bought cider and Pringles, but no adaptors.  I sighed a bit.  Up a side street and almost out of sight, I spotted a Spar.  It was smaller and more disorganised than the Co-op so I didn’t hold out much hope, but then, accompanied by an angelic chorus, I spotted a couple of universal adaptors dangling on a rack.  I was so happy I bought them both.

And surely – SURELY – I won’t make the same mistake again.