We’d met at Earl’s Court and were on the piccadilly line platform when he said it.

“I don’t mean to panic you, but…”

Here we go, I thought. I’ve lost my passport. One of my visas is incorrect. The possibilities were endless.

“I think I’ve somehow reset the combination on my padlock. I can’t get it off my case!”

In the grand scheme of things, for me this wasn’t the worst news in the world. For him, the possibility of staying in SE Asia for 3 weeks in just what he was wearing (jeans and a t-shirt), it may have been.  We discussed how to solve this – trying the possible combinations (“I’ve tried 100 of them on the tube here” he exclaimed), asking someone to cut the padlock off at Heathrow (“They’ll blatantly think we’ve just nicked it off the arrivals belt”), asking someone to cut the padlock off in Bangkok (“they’ll definitely do it”), and the worst case, cutting into the case and buying a new one there. I wasn’t that worried.

We arrived at Heathrow 2 hours before our flight and wandered around a bit, looking for the sort of place where they cut off padlocks. Eventually, OH went down to information and returned with a surly looking man sporting a huge pair of bolt cutters.

Snip! Padlock off. And he was off again – no questions asked.  We proceeded to check-in and departures with a new (key) padlock in place and the old one in pieces. “I’ve had that padlock since I was 18!” He moaned.

Another one of those times I wish I’d snapped the shot…

CatDog xx