This isn’t the post I thought I would be writing today. In fact, it’s not a post I thought I’d be writing ever. On Saturday, someone walked into my house, picked up my beloved Mulberry bag, and walked out again. We were all in the house, sitting a mere 20 feet away in the next room, or, in the case of my children, upstairs in bed.
Upon seeing that the back door was open, the first thing my husband did was run upstairs to check on our kids, so don’t think that I haven’t thought about the absolute worst that could have happened. Really, I know that someone just took advantage of us leaving the back door unlocked after we’d opened it to let the kids catch hailstones in a bowl earlier in the evening. I still feel a bit sick thinking that they could have tried that door many times before, and finally been rewarded by our forgetfulness.
After a truly dreadful recent event, I have had lots of good fortune recently. I have met lots of new people, kindled some new friendships and invested time in older, important ones. I’ve been to wonderful events, had lovely family time and even won a competition. So, there is a part of me that thinks this happened just so I didn’t get too big for my boots. As if the Universe was redressing the balance. Giving me something bad, so that I make sure I appreciate the good.
In being the victim of some really horrible behaviour, I have actually had my faith in the overall goodness of people restored by the reactions of others. From my lovely friends both virtual and in real life, I have had nothing but support and kindness. They have sworn on my behalf, given out hugs, made cups of tea (essential in any kind of British crisis) gone out and searched the local area and on Ebay for signs of my stuff. One lovely soul spent half the morning getting my work laptop extracted from the cupboard in which it was locked (my key was taken) and my boss let me work a short day so I could deal with everything. When I went in the library to tell them that I needed new cards, the lovely librarian gave me my reserved books without charge, simply because she is wonderful. Of course, the books I had reserved were all Agatha Raisin crime novels.
Many of us do love a crime novel. Mainly though, the appeal is in the solution. At the end of a crime novel, especially old favourites like Agatha Christie, we can be assured that justice will be meted out and the bad guys will get what they deserve. Sadly, real life does not often provide us with tidy and satisfying solutions. I doubt the person who stole my things will ever be caught, which makes the whole thing more difficult to live with. There is an episode of ‘The Good Life’ television programme (after which this blog is lovingly named), in which Tom and Barbara’s house is broken into. Because they have nothing worth stealing, the perpetrators simply trash the place. They refuse to back down, saying that what happened was not their failure, it was someone else’s. What has just happened to me is not my failure. I admit that I’m shaken, sad and angry but I will not be beaten by it. I will not let my overwhelming faith in people be ruined by the failure of one.
So, now I’ve got that out of my system, let’s move onto happier things, shall we?
