We inherited a safe when we bought the house. It was, inconveniently, on the first floor, made of concrete and steel, weighing around a ton. It closed with a combination and a key. Unfortunately neither of those came with the house. They seemed to have died with the former owner.



It's been sitting outside our future bedroom for the last four months, while we tried to work out what to do with it. Ideally we'd keep it I suppose, you never know when you might have cause to lock away something of infinite value. We don't own anything worth over 3000€ (as we discovered when the removal company asked us to list our valuables) so it wouldn't be for right away, but one can dream, after all.

We also found ourselves dreaming that there were other people's valuables locked up in this safe. In our wilder dreamstates we imagined gold bars whose value would cover the costs of the renovation. In less flighty moments we thought of useless banknotes in old francs, or perhaps a long-lost pearl necklace. Nazi documentation was the nightmare possibility.



The plumber seemed to be really desperate to know what was inside, so, having decided that we were going to bust the safe then get rid of it, I enlisted his help to break it open. Ocean's Eleven this was not. In cinematic terms it was rather more Mr Bean. It took half an hour of concerted and smoky work with a metal cutter, then a lot of yanking with different shaped iron rods. Powdered concrete poured out of the holes but the door wouldn't open. The plumber poked around in despair.



After 45 minutes of wondering if smoke inhalation was a worthwhile payoff for a stash of gold ingots, or anything really, the door swung open.

There was, of course, nothing inside.