A Tale Of Theft And Criminal Damage

I don't know, what is the world coming to? Theft and criminal damage visited upon children and the disabled. No, don't worry, you haven't accidentally happened on the Daily Mail website, it's still me. It's been a miserable few days thanks to a couple of miserable events. Polly and Sam's godmother, the lovely Stacey, took the boys to the park the other day. The boys rode their Flashing Storm scooters as they often do and left them as usual against the fence. It was cold and starting to get dark so they didn't play for long. Just a quick nip up the climbing wall and a whiz round on the round-about and back home. Only when they went to collect the scooters, as they have a thousand times before, they were gone. Stolen, nicked, made off with. Some heartless bastard had scooted off with my boys precious wheels.

The boys were devastated, particularly Matty, and felt suddenly vulnerable in a place they had previously felt safe in. Sam was more put out by the fact that he would now have to walk home. I suppose it would be unchristian of me to hope the wheels fall off and a trip to casualty ensues.

Then, on Saturday, Polly was working in Wimbledon and was parked on the street. When she returned from entertaining a pack of little darlings to load her equipment back into the van she found that some numpty had driven into the back of it with one of those metal tow bar fixtures you attach caravans or trailers to. The resulting damage means that the ramp no longer works and I can't use our van any more. We will have to take it to a body repair shop and have bits welded back together at vast expense and inconvenience. Thank you whoever you are. I hope the lump of metal on the back of your vehicle did not suffer too much damage.

So, if anyone offers you some cheap children's scooters, let me know. And if their car has a slightly damaged tow bar with flecks of white paint on it, do me a favour and let their tyres down.

On a completely different and happier note I would like to congratulate my friend Alistair Kevin Daniel on the confirmation of his doctorate. I'm still not exactly sure what semiotics is, but it's good to know they are in such safe hands. I'm very proud of you Dr Daniel, well done. If ever there was a man born to wear scarlet medieval robes, it was you.