Personal

Sleeping out

One year ago today I did something very stupid: I locked my keys in the car. (Since then I've always known where my keys are at any time.)

That's not the end of it. I'd left them in the ignition. My spare key was at home, four hundred miles away. I had no money on me - my wallet was in the boot. It was getting late on a cold Sunday in January and all I had on was a t-shirt and trousers. Boy racers were tearing up and down the cobbled streets menacingly. My phone battery was on its last legs.

This picture was taken just seconds before I realised what I'd done. I'd seen the sun catch the band of pine trees that separate the sea from the town and raced from the car to photograph the effect, forgetting to check first that I had a way of getting back in.