For the first time since I started this blog, I made no post last week.  This was mostly because I now blog on Monday, my day off work, and the Good Life Press website was inaccessible until Tuesday. It had broken because the people who run their servers (I don’t understand what I just typed, but I will pretend that I do) had a break in. This gave me an idea for this week’s blog: burglary.

I have only ever been burgled once. It was probably about ten years ago. We had been out playing wind octets at a friend’s house, and when we turned up our road, I noticed a police car sitting outside our house. Of course, my first thought was that someone in our families had died, so I was massively relieved to find out that we had been broken into.

The police man had been waiting for us for about an hour, and was just about to leave when we showed up. He was an extremely nice man – the sort of competent, large person one wants around in an emergency (not that this was an emergency). He had had a look round our house – by climbing through our broken kitchen window – and had apparently terrified Stan, our cat (who is sitting on my lap as I type – he is knocking on a bit), in the process.

The burglars had been scared off by a combination of our burglar alarm and a brave neighbour who had come to investigate. They ran off and were never caught, but they got very little. I am embarrassed to say that the only thing we noticed that had gone was a half drunk bottle of Tia Maria. We did not bother to file a contents claim form for that: it would have revealed us as a couple with poor taste. However, we did get a new kitchen window out of it. The one that the thieves broke had been single glazed and held in by wood that was rapidly rotting. Our new one is double glazed, and held in by plastic. So, the burglars actually did us a favour.

I have two thoughts about what might happen if I were to be burgled properly. Firstly, the burglars would be really very disappointed indeed. We don’t have a telly, or really anything electronic that they could flog quickly – except possibly this lap top. But that is six years old now and hardly cutting edge technology. Secondly, I would be genuinely distraught if burglars nicked my wine. I have about 100 bottles dotted around the house, some of which are delicious and some of which are not. But all have their own story to tell – or will do when they are drunk – and that would be 100 stories not told, a stolen set of anecdotes. Claire thinks that it would be massively unlikely that anyone would want to steal my wine, and she is almost certainly right. So I shall comfort myself with that thought.