This last week has been full of extreme highs and lows and the final week of term now looms large (I’ll come back to the highs over the weekend) but for now the low and indulge me but it is neither teaching  or education related:

Wednesday morning as I was leaving for work I saw one of my neighbours in the car park looking distressed and he told me that we had been broken into – what he meant was our garage had been “done” along with 7  others (out of 12). Whoever did it, not only took “stuff” but they also mindlessly vandalised a neighbours car by spray painting it. It turns out that most of my husbands remaining electric tools that he had from when he was self-employed had been taken – in fact he is still puzzling about what was in one of the gaps amongst all the chaos and so the full extent is still being calculated.

Whilst whoever did this could argue that we’re insured, or that we can afford to replace them – their logic probably revolves around the fact that if you can afford to buy them in the first place, you can probably afford to replace them! What they don’t know is that I could tell you the cost of EVERY SINGLE one of those tools, and I could even relate the cost to hours of work that either my husband or myself had to do (over and above our normal day jobs) in order to buy them in the first place. It’s not as if we just had buckets of cash sloshing around to buy this stuff … normal people don’t do they?

And then comes the issue of insurance  … OK so we’re insured but we’ve an excess and then we are faced with increased premiums for the next few years, so it’s not some faceless corporation that they are stealing from in a “roundabout” way … it is affecting real people. These thieves must have friends and family – how would they feel if this happened to them? It’s just not right that in some alternate world they live in that they can consider what they have done is acceptable. I am thinking though, that the buggers just don’t care about anything they do and how it affects those involved. We are hard working people and I just wish that these type of people go out and get themselves a job. We work (hard!) for everything we own .. maybe they need to try it … it really is quite satisfying!! Luckily my husband no longer relies on most of these tools to do his day job, but if he had these people would be affecting someone else’s  ability to earn a living! It does however mean that any plans we have for stuff around the house are delayed until we replace the tools – we do that type of stuff ourselves, and don’t “just get a man in”. One thing I can guarantee is that these people aren’t losing a wink of sleep … unlike myself and my neighbours (several of whom are in their 70’s and 80’s and one is in hospital awaiting diagnosis of his condition).  Heartless!

So if you do happen to come across any Bosch drills/batteries/planers/radio or basically any type of tool with the name “Bobbie” on … they’re ours! You thieving gits! It has made me wonder about what kind of people do this kind of thing, and how they start off on that road – maybe somewhere along the way they learn that this is acceptable behaviour and also by thinking that we aren’t “real people” makes its easier for them … well I can assure you that we are real and the effects of what has taken place are very, very real!

PS It has taken the police 2 days to actually turn up on site, and as we were at work they left us a little “while you were out note” … lovely! (not!)