Long Road Home

This the first of a double bill from one of my favourite readers, InvisibleWoman, who risked life and limb to bring this lost glove to wider attention.

She says: 'I felt a complete and utter Charlie standing at the side of a busy dual carriageway taking a picture of this strangely defiant gauntlet (I definitely get the impression of a two-fingered salute going on here). Thankfully, I have one of those new-fangled camera phones so I could pretend to be sending a text so urgent it required me to get off my bike and stand at the edge of a busy road. I did consider waiting for a bus to come thundering past so I could add dramatic effect to the picture, but you know what buses are like when you want one, and I couldn't trust myself not to get flattened at the same time.'

InvisibleWoman, we would, of course, rather you were alive to tell the tale than we caught a fleeting flash of bus.

Many contributors to this blog speak of feeling a bit of a chump as they take pictures of bedraggled fallen gloves in public. I understand this, but I believe you should think of yourselves as pioneers. They all laughed at Christopher Columbus [I am quoting George Gershwin here, or possibly his sister Ira] when he said the world was round. They all laughed when Edison invented sound.

But one day, when you're shame-facedly taking that picture, people will stop you on the street and say, 'Oh, you must be taking a photo for Miss Jones's blog. Not the main one. The other one she does when she fails to get round to posting anything on the first one and is trying to quickly make herself feel a little bit less shit about it.' And then you will laugh and shake hands and maybe go for a drink or fall in love. And man shall speak unto man – or woman – and nation shall speak unto nation and everything will go just a little bit better. Because of you. And – pardon my boldness – because of ME.