ADHD

It's a hot day in London (nearly 30C/86F!) so I took my coat off on the train, and promptly forgot it.

As soon as I got into the office, I googled lost property for First Great Western, and read that all lost property is sent to their Bristol office.  Bristol is a 3 hour round-trip from my house! I may be visiting a friend in Cirencester this weekend, but Bristol is still an hour further--2 hours round-trip--just to pick up my coat.  I didn't like the suit that much.

But then I remembered Bristol is where the balloon fiesta is held, so I googled that, and it's being held the 11th-14th of August, which is the same weekend I'm going to the Edinburgh fringe festival.  Bristol and Edinburgh are probably the two largest cities in Great Britain that are the furthest from each other!  In addition, I'd already bought my train tickets from Reading to Edinburgh, and changing it to go from Bristol would have almost doubled the cost.

But I was excited at seeing the balloons, and so some furious googling produced this itinerary:
  - Reading to Bristol, Thursday the 11th, 16:57-18:14
  - Balloon glow 9:30pm
  - Mass ascent 6:00am, Friday the 12th
  - Bristol to Reading 10:30-11:43
  - Reading to Edinburgh 12:11-18:22

This was a brilliant plan, although not without cost:
  - Reading to Bristol, £35 return
  - Single room at Greenhouse B&B, £55
  - Lost property charge, £3

That's £93 (US $152) -- a bit steep for my coat (I think the suit cost about the same), but I'd get to see a balloon glow and a mass ascent!  How perfect was that?

So I decided to do it.  The first step was to call First Great Western and report the loss, so I went back to their website to get the phone number, and that's when I found a small note at the bottom of the page:

"For items that are left on trains terminating at Paddington, please contact Network Rail's Paddington Lost Property Office directly."

In other words, they weren't going to send my coat to Bristol, and I couldn't justify the expense just to see the balloons.