Snatching success from the jaws of defeat - an unlikely tale

[gbclive]

Evesham (on glorious Avon) Saturday morning 7.30 with the need to get underway ASAP.

Cassette full, so lugged it across the bridge to the Elsan point at the lock using my iPad to navigate - too early so the access was locked.

Walked despondently back past the public toilet next to our mooring in the town.

No notice referring to septic tank and in the centre of town - so I reasoned the chemicals should not be an issue.

After some soul searching and with infinite care, I slowly emptied the cassette, leaving the facilities as spotless as I had found them.

We set off nice and early towards the Severn in perfect weather, munching on tasty fresh Eccles cakes and sipping large mugs of steaming coffee to the sound track of our Kelvin. I'm a well happy bunny...... until......

 

After an hour my wife could not find my iPad.

Slowly the dreadful truth dawned - I'd left it at the pubic loo.

One hour later my worst fear was confirmed - no sign of it.

Several fruitless calls to the council and police etc before my wife remembered the "Find My iPad" app.

It showed up immediately on her iPad about half a mile away - we set of at a brisk walk and after 10 minutes we arrived outside a nice house.

The friendly owners were unable to help but suggested we search their garden.

Then my wife had her second brainwave of the day - you can make the iPad ring!

We could hear it very faintly but difficult to sense the direction.

We rummaged under various hedges without success.

Crossed the road - it sounded closer.

After puzzling for some time we realised the sound was coming from inside a Royal Mail Post Box!

Checked Saturday's single collection time - 11.00 and it was now 11.30.

Next collection Monday by which time we needed to be in Saul Junction.

Another round of fruitless calls - this time to Royal Mail.

 

The nice homeowners stepped in - the wife making my wife a cup of coffee whilst the husband drove me to the post office which was closing imminently.

As we arrived there we got a call. Whilst drinking coffee the wives had spotted the Post Office van driving past - he was late on his rounds :-)

They hustled over to the Post Box to find a confused postman with my iPad in his hand.

He accepted the story was too ridiculous for it to have been fabricated, so he handed It over :-)

 

Really - what are the chances?

 

There were several morals learnt including marking contact details on valuables to increase the chance them being returned.

 

Spare cassette ordered (refresh kit).

Unfortunately a brain transplant will not be so easy :-(

[Sea Dog]

Cracking - a happy ending! Who'da thought it?

[Richard10002]

So are we assuming that someone found it, and put it in the post box? Or did you do it in a moment of senility?

[RLWP]

So are we assuming that someone found it, and put it in the post box? Or did you do it in a moment of senility?

 

You are very, very Norty

 

Richard

[gbclive]

So are we assuming that someone found it, and put it in the post box? Or did you do it in a moment of senility?

Good point!

I definately did not post it as I'd never been to that area. So I assume someone found it in the loo and took it home, only to discover, that they could not use it without the pass code, so dumped it in the post box.

I still can't believe how things turned out.

Perhaps I should have tried the lottery that day

[RLWP]

Perhaps I should have tried the lottery that day

 

Definitely not! How much luck do you think you get in a day

 

Richard

[Bee]

Fact is that most of the population are actually pretty good people, one or two of the other sort can really mess your day up but I've met far, far more of the nice ones, coupled with a bit of luck you get your i pad back or a lift of many kms to get a spare boat part in the wilds of France.

[gbclive]

Fact is that most of the population are actually pretty good people

Thankfully, that's my experience too.

[mark99]

I pads have a home-ing app. If they lose their owner, they post themselves back home.

 

Great story btw.

[gbclive]

I pads have a home-ing app. If they lose their owner, they post themselves back home.

 

Great story btw.

I pads have a home-ing app. If they lose their owner, they post themselves back home. Great story btw.

Thanks Mark - I have an even better story from later that day. Just plucking up the courage to confess ?

[Phil Ambrose]

Thanks Mark - I have an even better story from later that day. Just plucking up the courage to confess ?

Aw, come on, do tell

Phil

[John V]

[gbclive]

Aw, come on, do tell

Phil

OK Phil - I need to take some pics as supporting evidence, so give me a few days.

Of course I may chicken out due to extreme embarrassment.

[john6767]

We had a similar thing with find my iPhone. Daughter called (on someone else's phone) at 2am from centre of Birmingham to say that her phone had been stolen, she was distraught. Told her to get a taxi and come to ours. So arrived at our house 30 mins later, the taxi driver would not take the fare as she was so upset, I think he was just relieved to get her safe.

 

We sat at the kitchen table trying to get the story out of her, and I said shall we try find my iPhone, we know they will have turned it off (from the last 2 iPhones she had stolen when working in Madrid, we know they turn them off and leave them off for 3 months), but it is worth a try.

 

So after she struggled to remember here Apple password we gto logged on to to iCloud on a laptop, and went to find my iPhone, and I could not work out why it was showing a map of our house rather than where the phone was, or telling me it was turned off. They my brain woke up, it was 3am at this point, it was saying that the phone was here. She searched coat pockets, deposited content of handbag on table still no phone. I noticed the ring option and tried it, and her handbag started ringing, it had gone down inside the lining of her handbag!!!

[patty-ann]

I once posted my tickets to see a London musical in post box near sons nursery just before I was due to catch train...posty had already been but the local residents phoned round all their friends until one saw postman and he came back and rescued my tickets..there are some great people about...so I got to see Josephs Amazing etc for the third time..seen it another time since..its my all time fav musical.

[gbclive]

We had a similar thing with find my iPhone.............

Thanks John - so it needs to be switched on.

I now realise it was lucky that I had been using a web based map app that needed the cell data option switched on. If my iPad had been a wifi only model or if I had been using an uploaded map, the ending would not have been so happy. Luck, luck and then even more luck!

[MtB]

I'm impressed that the iPad could find a signal to broadcast its location inside a cast iron pillar box, with only a slot at the top for a signal to leak through

[john6767]

Thanks John - so it needs to be switched on.

I now realise it was lucky that I had been using a web based map app that needed the cell data option switched on. If my iPad had been a wifi only model or if I had been using an uploaded map, the ending would not have been so happy. Luck, luck and then even more luck!

Yes it needs to be switched on and have a network connection, so you are correct that would not have worked for a WiFi only model, or if you did not have 3G turned on.

[David Mack]

I'm impressed that the iPad could find a signal to broadcast its location inside a cast iron pillar box, with only a slot at the top for a signal to leak through

That was my thought. A post box must make a pretty good Faraday cage.

[DHutch]

Excellent!

 

Far shorter, but I once left my phone in a cubical at an airport loo (newish phone smartphone, mid connection on my way to/from working in India, so not good timing) realised only a few minutes later, returned to the exact spot to find said cubical locked. Decided to wait there, for around five minutes, eventually a bloke came out holding said phone in his hand, and when I said 'thats my phone, if you dont mind' or words to that effect, got it back.

 

Do this day I do not know if he had medical issues, was trying unsuccessfully to get into it in order to use it unscrupulously, or trying to get into it in order to find it owner and return it safely. However either way I would amazingly glad to get it back safely!

 

 

Daniel

[Dave_P]

OP - you use your iPad to navigate to an elsan? Confused.

[gbclive]

OP - you use your iPad to navigate to an elsan? Confused.

We were turning around at Evesham (first visit) in order to return downstream along the River Avon to the Severn.

Moored on the public moorings which are downstream of the bridge and on the opposite bank to the lock which is upstream of the bridge.

Taking the boat to the lock with its facilities would have meant either winding upstream of the bridge near the weir or locking up, winding, then locking back down.

So a fair walk with a heavy cassette downstream then over the bridge, then following various roads and paths before cutting back towards the river.

New flats with security gates restrict access back to the river.

In the event the navigation was fairly easy, so iPad not needed, but found access to the lock and Elsan point was closed until the lock keeper arrived for work an hour later.

 

Sorry, but you did ask ;-)

[Tim Lewis]

We had a similar thing with find my iPhone. Daughter called (on someone else's phone) at 2am from centre of Birmingham to say that her phone had been stolen, she was distraught. Told her to get a taxi and come to ours. So arrived at our house 30 mins later, the taxi driver would not take the fare as she was so upset, I think he was just relieved to get her safe.

 

We sat at the kitchen table trying to get the story out of her, and I said shall we try find my iPhone, we know they will have turned it off (from the last 2 iPhones she had stolen when working in Madrid, we know they turn them off and leave them off for 3 months), but it is worth a try.

 

So after she struggled to remember here Apple password we gto logged on to to iCloud on a laptop, and went to find my iPhone, and I could not work out why it was showing a map of our house rather than where the phone was, or telling me it was turned off. They my brain woke up, it was 3am at this point, it was saying that the phone was here. She searched coat pockets, deposited content of handbag on table still no phone. I noticed the ring option and tried it, and her handbag started ringing, it had gone down inside the lining of her handbag!!!

 

Find my Iphone is an excellent App. Returning from the boat last year I droped mine at Aylesbury Station, using the app later I saw that it was in a house a couple of miles from the station. The app allows you to show a mesage on the screen of the phone even when it is locked which I did. Within minutes the person who found the phone contacted me and posted it back to me the next day.

 

Generally I put a little sticker with my mobile number on items of value. Also last year I mislaid a tablet computer. The next day a very nice lady called me to say that she had found it in a pub car park. 'That will be the Plough at Huddlesford' I said which was the last place that I had seen it, No she said, she had found it outside a pub in Lichfield, somewhere that I hadn't been. Took a while to work out that I had most likely dropped it in the taxi that I had got to the Plough which then went into Lichfield where it must have fallen out of the Taxi!

 

Tim