Pembridge Road, 29th April 2008

I love this, as it's the first one I've ever seen being lost. Two Notting Hill mothers wandered along the pavement, each wheeling a toddler clutching a balloon. As I watched, one child let his slip, and it was up and gone before he or his mother could react. Indeed as my hand shot to my pocket for my camera, I assumed that I'd have to scurry down the street and stand right next to the mewling infant, phone aloft, as I gleefully snapped the cause of his misery before it shrank into the distance. But happily not. Not only was the infant utterly nonplussed (and his mother doubtless relieved by the fact), but a fresh-leaved tree had snagged the very end of the balloon's ribbon, leaving it bobbing patiently against a grey sky.

So I snapped guiltlessly and unnoticed as the mothers moved on, their incident likely quickly forgotten over cappuccino and chat, never to know the tiny thrill it gave the man they just walked past.

On my homeward commute the balloon had gone.