Andrea Cole picked up the wrong one when leaving her Cardiff home for a holiday with her mum and did not realise her mistake until minutes before take-off. She had already passed through two sets of checks at Cardiff International Airport - and was then allowed through immigration at Fuerteventura without the error being spotted.

Mrs Cole, a self-employed computer technician, said: "I just couldn't believe what had happened. You would expect people to double check in this day and age."  Thomas Cook Airlines have apologised and a Cardiff International Airport spokeswoman said they were "disappointed" by the incident.

Mrs Cole said: "My husband and I fly quite often, and our passports are kept together. I just didn't look at it. I took one of them without thinking. It didn't twig that I could have grabbed the wrong one." The airport checks passed without incident, but Mrs Cole opened the passport when she was on board the plane.

She said: "I did a quick check, and thought: 'That's not mine'. I looked at my mum, and we just sat there for ages, not knowing what to do. I couldn't think straight.  We decided to see what happened at the other end, and agree with whatever they said.  But when the passport was checked at entry, the man looked at it, and gave it straight back to me before waving us through."

I know that passport photos are notoriously unflattering but really!

Andrea decided to invest in a course of electrolysis.

The original was here.