A cherished ticket to freedom...
I can’t imagine my life without travel. ‘Find a job you love’, so the saying goes, ‘and you’ll never work a day in your life’. In the last ten years I’ve been lucky enough to visit more than 30 countries and my constant companion (the only thing that I know for certain has been on all of those trips with me) has been my passport. We have a lot in common, me and my passport. As we’ve travelled together, we’ve aged together; the cover has gradually become weatherworn and wrinkled, not unlike my face. The stamps and visas emblazoned on the pages inside trigger memories of places visited and friends made. We’ve spent so much time together I think, by a process of osmosis, we probably share the same DNA. So this week was a sad week – it was time to renew. Arriving back from Stockholm late on Wednesday night, I slid my old passport face down for the very last time into the scanner at the Heathrow border. And as the glass gate opened in front of me, I said a quiet (but still quit...