When travelling I have a checklist of the last things to do.
But you really need to start planning ahead.
I've had the experience of being knocked down by a car in Corsica. I was in hospital for weeks. I was stuck in bed for weeks after that, unable to lift my arm, go out to post a letter.
Your relatives are kept busy rushing to hospital to see you, going overseas to get you home, or looking after the children you were looking after. Even if you survive an accident, you need to leave everything as organised as you can.
Here are some of the things to do:
1 TOILET
Last thing - go to the toilet. I was persuaded to follow a group onto a chairlift, told we could go to the loo at the top. My chairlift was stuck in mid-air for over an hour. On another occasion I left work in a hurry to get home in the snow before dark. Only a ten minute journey. I could wait that long for the loo. But I was stuck on a hillside traffic jam for over an hour. (Always keep a spare plastic bag, bottle of water and an empty bowl or jug of some kind in a car if you don't travel with an emergency toilet device).
2 ID
Keep evidence of your identity with you at all times. A photocopy with number will do. Even at the beach. Or hotel swimming pool - the people in the fire at the hotel in Florida years ago were unable to go back to their rooms for credit cards and passports. Write ICE - in case of emergency - in your telephone phone list, or best of all on the back of the phone. Then if your phone is password protected, in a car accident, the emergency services can summon your next of kin. (Yes, I was in an accident recently. Last year on the M4 in the UK.)
3 RETURN BORROWED ITEMS
Library books - anything which runs up fines, sends reminder letters, causes aggravation to you and others. Never lend anything unless you are prepared to say goodbye to it and not worry. As Shakespeare said, neither a borrower nor a lender be. Years after I loaned my friend a book, she found it in her bookcase. I told her she could keep it. I wrote in it under my name and address that I had donated it to her as very small reciprocation for the many meals and years of friendship she had given me. Now anybody finding that book need not worry about returning it, or thinking she had borrowed or stolen it. Instead they find a heart-warming message.
4 PAY DEBTS
Debts to friends. Debts to businesses. I never owe money to gardeners or cleaners or window cleaners. If you do that, they can turn up weeks or months later saying to you or your family or executors, Mr/Mrs so and so owed me so much. You thought you paid them for January. No, they argue, but I did x for you in Feb, and never got paid. Just don't let that happen.
5 LEAVE YOUR FORWARD ADDRESS/FLIGHT PLANS/RETURN DATE
Staying in a hotel? Taking a flight? Leave the address. Otherwise every disaster sends your family into a panic, even though you were at a different place and on different transport.
But you really need to start planning ahead.
I've had the experience of being knocked down by a car in Corsica. I was in hospital for weeks. I was stuck in bed for weeks after that, unable to lift my arm, go out to post a letter.
Your relatives are kept busy rushing to hospital to see you, going overseas to get you home, or looking after the children you were looking after. Even if you survive an accident, you need to leave everything as organised as you can.
Here are some of the things to do:
1 TOILET
Last thing - go to the toilet. I was persuaded to follow a group onto a chairlift, told we could go to the loo at the top. My chairlift was stuck in mid-air for over an hour. On another occasion I left work in a hurry to get home in the snow before dark. Only a ten minute journey. I could wait that long for the loo. But I was stuck on a hillside traffic jam for over an hour. (Always keep a spare plastic bag, bottle of water and an empty bowl or jug of some kind in a car if you don't travel with an emergency toilet device).
2 ID
Keep evidence of your identity with you at all times. A photocopy with number will do. Even at the beach. Or hotel swimming pool - the people in the fire at the hotel in Florida years ago were unable to go back to their rooms for credit cards and passports. Write ICE - in case of emergency - in your telephone phone list, or best of all on the back of the phone. Then if your phone is password protected, in a car accident, the emergency services can summon your next of kin. (Yes, I was in an accident recently. Last year on the M4 in the UK.)
3 RETURN BORROWED ITEMS
Library books - anything which runs up fines, sends reminder letters, causes aggravation to you and others. Never lend anything unless you are prepared to say goodbye to it and not worry. As Shakespeare said, neither a borrower nor a lender be. Years after I loaned my friend a book, she found it in her bookcase. I told her she could keep it. I wrote in it under my name and address that I had donated it to her as very small reciprocation for the many meals and years of friendship she had given me. Now anybody finding that book need not worry about returning it, or thinking she had borrowed or stolen it. Instead they find a heart-warming message.
4 PAY DEBTS
Debts to friends. Debts to businesses. I never owe money to gardeners or cleaners or window cleaners. If you do that, they can turn up weeks or months later saying to you or your family or executors, Mr/Mrs so and so owed me so much. You thought you paid them for January. No, they argue, but I did x for you in Feb, and never got paid. Just don't let that happen.
5 LEAVE YOUR FORWARD ADDRESS/FLIGHT PLANS/RETURN DATE
Staying in a hotel? Taking a flight? Leave the address. Otherwise every disaster sends your family into a panic, even though you were at a different place and on different transport.
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