Our trip to London and Dublin passed mostly without incident apart from a slight mishap – I lost my BlackBerry.

What makes this particular loss so annoying is that it occurred at a time when I was doing something that I never normally do – leave my phone off when I’m on holiday.

I’ve had a mobile of one sort or another for ten years now. Like most people I’ve pretty much never gone anywhere without one – be it to work, to the shops or on holiday. When I go away, pretty much the first thing I do when I land/disembark is crank up the ol’ mobie and see what carrier I’m on and if I have any messages.

Well, on Tuesday we flew to Dublin from Heathrow and as we walked to the gate I made sure my BlackBerry was switched off in advance of boarding. When we arrived in Dublin, for the first time ever I made a decision to just leave my phone off and spend some time in the great city ‘unconnected’. It wasn’t until we were packing on Thursday morning that I realised my phone was missing. A thorough search didn’t turn it up. Jennifer rang it and got a ringing tone but nobody answered. In case you’re wondering, it switches itself on each morning, so would have done so on Wednesday despite my turning it off for the flight on Tuesday. This would explain why it rang for Jennifer, even if it were lying somewhere unattended.

Giving it up as lost I called Orange who deactivated the SIM card and confirmed there had been no activity on the account since I used it on Tuesday morning. Luckily, I had purchased the handset from ebay and was on a SIM-only contract so my losses are minimal. I’m glad I don’t have a year to go on the contract, and my only expense will be for a replacement SIM card. I’ll just use an old handset until we move to the OC.

So, the only time I decide to not use my phone for a couple of days I lose it. Maybe if I had tried to use it sooner I would have discovered its loss and taken steps to find it – or maybe I wouldn’t have lost it at all because the act of using it would mean I put it away safely. Anyway, all I know is it’s somewhere between Heathrow terminal 1 and the Clarence Hotel in Dublin. I called Aer Lingus but to no avail – they hadn’t found it. My guess is it was dropped in the taxi to the hotel, but I’ll never know.

Damage was also limited because I always back up my equipment – all contact details are on my Mac. The only ‘danger’ is that all my contacts were on the BB so there’s just a slight chance of stalking…