GLOVE 1

WHEN:	14th November 2000, 11.57am
WHERE:	On the north side of a zebra crossing on The Cut, SE1
HAND:	Right
DESCRIPTION:	A workman's glove. Predominantly green rubber, the green of impressive houseplants. Grey fabric with red and black stripes.

Now when I started collecting these gloves I was missing her badly. So I thought, why not collect lost gloves. Why not make a little shrine to being part of a pair away from your other half. Maybe they'd make me feel better.

I'd been going out with Kitty for about six months, maybe a bit more. We had been working together in one of those jobs where you need a colleague to become a friend. Not because the job is so awful (I mean, it was pretty bad, but that's not what pushed us together) but because you need to get rid of all those stresses and the best way to do that is by letting them go in private with someone, who, in public you treat very professionally and properly. We could be talking any job - spying, drilling for North Sea Oil, data entry for a multinational credit card company. What we happened to be doing wasn't important, but the fact that we were the only two single people our age where we worked drew us together. At first it was just a few drinks after work where we managed to be the last ones to leave, or I said I'd walk her back or wait with her until the taxi came. I liked being alone with her, getting to know her in a way that I couldn't quite when others were around.

Then a colleague told me that he thought we should get together. That if I wasn't there for a meeting or whatever, that she'd ask where I was. That her face lit up when I came in. And he'd seen me do the same things too. He said he thought we had the same sense of humour and that things might really click for us. That put me in the right mind - I began to look at her as the person I have been looking for. Does that make sense? I mean she was right for me - smart, funny, sexy, independent and someone whose work I admired and I could learn from too. My mind was slowly coming round. I'd done her little friendly favours in the past but one night she did me the best favour of all. I won't go into details, but it was a night when I had to celebrate life and she knew this and said she'd come to a corny disco just near work. We danced together like absolute loonies for hours, and to this day I know it was that moment that made me fall for her. And that moment makes me love her still.

And when you have a moment like that, you feel found. You've found someone and you've found something in yourself that you like because they like it in you. And losing that person and losing those feelings sucks.