Not so good Friday

I knew I was going to have to get up early. 8am is an ungodly sort of an hour for a service, even a Good Friday one, so I had set my alarm. Actually two of them. Still, when I heard an insistent noise through the mists of sleep it seemed dreadfully early. I didn't realise until later just how early it was.

Through the fog, it dawned on me that the phone was ringing. It was the police. "There are police officers outside your house", they said. "They want to talk to you." Before I could review my life for major undetected crimes, they went on to explain that my car had been stolen.

"Err... OK. I'll be right down!"


Seconds later, dressed, downstairs, and almost lucid, I pulled back the curtains to reveal a pile of glass, a door with a hole in it, some wide-awake neighbours, the police, and no car. At least not mine - there was one with a flashing blue light, and some heap the joyriders rode in on. Kind of them to leave it for me.

"Were you really asleep through all that?"

Apparently I was. While I slept, the whole street seemed to have been awoken by the sound of my car being stolen - car alarms, joy riders, my window being smashed with a rock, a neighbour's car being hit, and later on, two police officers battering on my door.

I slept like a baby. Actually much better than a baby - it's their baby's habit of not actually sleeping all night that meant my next door neighbours were awake to see the incident, after all!

So much for the Good Friday service, and meeting up for breakfast afterwards. I got to talk to glaziers and locksmiths and insurance people and detectives and fingerprint men instead. Still, the house is secure again, and spring is a better time of year than winter for a hole in your house! And I had a fairly pleasant chatty day... it's funny how disasters help a feeling of community - especially other people's disasters ;-)

I also discovered that some insurance companies are on holiday now. I have a nasty sinking feeling that this will be the start of another saga - but I'm always prepared to be proved wrong by unexpected tales of integrity from the insurance industry!

Then my "friends" texted me a picture (does that make sense?) of them having breakfast: "Shame you couldn't make it!"

Friends are great, I'm told!