It's been emotional...

To quote Vinne Jones in Lock, Stock....

After 6+ years on the road, and 14 months in Latin America, crime has finally happened - Maria got her chain snatched from her neck while walking back to the apartment this afternoon.

We've been sensible - she left her watches, engagement ring and other big jewelery items at home last visit, but she has worn a small pendant that my mother gave her on a fine chain for the past 30+ years. It's not particularly heavy or valuable, but it was the first gift my mother ever gave her, brought back from Singapore in the late 1980s when mum went back to where she had been stationed in the RAF in the '50s.

Open road literally in sight of our apartment windows, no crowds, daylight, and so small we never thought that someone would even bother.....

Guy snatched it from her neck from behind, Maria felt it and yelled " my chain" and I instinctively took off after the little bastard. Down the road, across the road, back up the road and around the corner. I kept on him for about 250-300m, shouting "thief" at the top of my burning lungs,  and a couple of other passers by joined the chase but we couldn't keep up. But at least he dropped the 2 cellphones and Havaianas that he had also grabbed by that stage. I've not run that far or that fast since I was covering a winger in the teachers/old boys Vs current students rugby match at school in 1982. And no, I never played wing - prop forward was much more my speed. Maria says she has never seen me move that fast, even with the trots.......

Scoured the route to see if he had dropped it or thrown it but no joy, so went back to the apartment. I then went down for a swim at the beach, and just got back to the beach bar when Maria showed up grinning like a Cheshire cat - she had found the pendant :-) She looked again on her way from the apartment and it was sitting on a metal grate about 15 feet the other way from where he grabbed it and started running - must have flicked off the chain when it broke and gone the other way. No sign of the chain, but that doesn't matter.

Couple of drinks, wait for the adrenaline to subside and a few tearful minutes thinking about my mum. I don't believe she is watching us or helped or anything metaphysical, but I hope she would have approved, that she would have thought I did the right thing and chased, that I would protect my own and fight back, the way she brought me up.