One of those days...

I took out a great insurance policy a few weeks ago - it's called a home emergency cover. I was sold on the policy as it only cost £75 for the year and it included cover in case amongst other disasters you manage to lock yourself out of the house. Having locked myself out once before and it costing £85 to re-gain entry I thought this was a great policy to have.

You can imagine where this blog is heading...

Dear husband and eldest daughter were out this morning. Baby A and Baby E were having their morning sleep and boy in the middle and I were getting lunch ready for guests. Once the babies woke up I gave them lunch, got them dressed and put them in the stroller as I had agreed to meet up with dear husband and eldest daughter. We were running late to meet them so I decided to leave my bag behind, but I grabbed my coat and the key, closed the front door and attempted to lock it. The key wouldn't turn so I tried a bit harder, wiggled the key, pulled it out a bit, tried again and that was when it dawned on me that my whole bunch of keys with car keys and spare keys was on the other side of the lock.

I had no bag, no belongings, no phone.  When I have locked myself out before I have jumped over the wall and let myself in through the back patio door. Only problem was I just had the single front door key with me. I was only going out for a few minutes so didn't bring anything else.

A few doors up the road lives a guy who runs his own security system company. He installs burglar alarms so I assumed he could burgle us back into our house. As I knocked on his door I remembered about our great insurance policy and then I tried to delve into the deepest part of my brain to drag out who it was with. I couldn't. My neighbour sympathetically acknowledged my predicament, but didn't have the magic locksmith tool and also didn't know who my insurance policy might be with.

By this point Baby A and Baby E were screaming in the stroller as they thought they were going for a walk so I decided to take the babies to meet up with dear husband and perhaps he would know the name of our insurer. He also couldn't remember. In the end my neighbour called his mate the locksmith who promised to be round within 30 minutes.

So for 30 minutes, the 6 of us, my mother in law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their kids all gathered in our driveway. Our house is on a corner and in that 30 minutes several friends passed the house, our immediate neighbours and their kids came out to play and I felt more and more foolish as dear husband felt the need to explain my stupidity to all our friends. My brother-in-law spent a considerable amount of time waggling a bent coat hanger through my letter box and there was a lot of discussion about sending one of the smaller boys up a ladder and through our bathroom window! Before long though we all cheered as the LOCKSMITH van drove down the road. He must always receive such a great welcome when he gets to a stranded client.

4 seconds later with his magic tool we were all back in the house. We are £85 worse off and now I have to have write a compelling letter and persuade our insurers to pay me back for this calamity. I now know who the insurance policy is with but I am thinking of putting up a sign in my hallway - not sure what it should say. Perhaps it should be a reminder to remove my keys on the way out, or alternatively it should be to greet me as I re-gain entry. After the stress I felt this morning, I think the poster that adorns the wall in a friends house would be fitting - "Keep Calm and Carry On".