Apart from watching my belly button slowly disappear, which I am finding shocking frankly, there has been little to keep me occupied these last couple of weeks. Despite being confirmed to work in January, work has been slow so I have been able to stay at home. This would normally be great as it would mean I could pop out to the odd museum or go for an antique mooch or find somewhere for a nice cake. However, this damn painful girdle has meant I've been pretty much confined to the not so great indoors. (Have I mentioned my painful girdle? . . . ) Life currently feels a bit like being in Prison but with less activities and nicer food. Or worse still, I have turned into James Stewart in 'Rear Window'.
"Right now, his world has shrunk down to the size of his window". You said it sister!
Rear Window Trailer, Alfred Hitchcock
So, thank God for the odd distraction which comes with living in a City. There always seems to be something going on in the street outside my front window. The other night I couldn't sleep so got up at 2am and watched the Police for an hour who were definitely up to something juicy in the house opposite. You don't have 2 x Police Vans, 20 Policemen/women and 3 x Plain Clothes Officers going in and out of a house for an hour at 2am for nothing. It was great! Like watching The Bill Live. I never got to the bottom of what was actually happening but at least it killed an hour of my time.
So you can imagine my absolute delight when I had my own mystery to solve on Friday evening. The house I live in is split into 4 flats and 3 of us share a front door. Over the last couple of years we have twice been victims of hallway theft and had several bikes stolen from under our noses. The first time was when I was having my bedroom ceiling soundproofed (not as seedy as it sounds, I don't sleep in a gimp cell, my upstairs neighbours have wooden floor boards) and the workmen left the front door open for someone to walk straight into the hallway in broad daylight to nick our bikes. Then some may recall more recently the bikes we had got to replace the bikes that got stolen, got stolen and replaced by a kitten one night (I know, weird) after someone went out and didn't close the front door. So it's a bit of a problem. One of my friends said to me once after I'd had my 3rd handbag stolen on a night out, that getting robbed in London was a 'London Tax' and you have to accept people are always going to burgle you. I don't know if this is true or not or if I'm just unlucky but whatever the reason, it is exceedingly irritating.
Anyway, back to Friday night. My downstairs neighbour needed some Visitor Parking tickets for the next morning and wondered if anyone had any spares he could borrow. I said that I had some he could use but rather than waddle down in the darkness to put them through his front door (he has his own front door and letterbox separate to us), I would put them in an envelope and leave them poking out of the letter box I share with the 2 other neighbours. Within 3 minutes of me doing this, I heard someone take the tickets from the letterbox and assumed it was him. (I heard this as my front room is next to the shared front door and can unfortunately hear everything that goes on in the hallway). Then, about 10 minutes later, the downstairs neighbour emailed again saying "Great, let me know when I can collect the tickets". "Hang on", I thought, "someone has taken them already. And if it wasn't him, who was it?". This sent me into a rage. Had we, yet again, been the victim of an crime? Had someone been watching me put the tickets in the letterbox? I thought I was the only loser on my road with nothing better to do than stare out the window for hours. Did I suddenly have competition? Was the watcher ie me, being watched? *Shudder*
I phoned the downstairs neighbour immediately and told him what had happened, the tickets had been nicked! I had some more he could have however, he should come up to get them from me incase the thief struck again. Just as he came up to the front door, one of the other neighbour's came back from the pub so I told him what had happened. And the 3 of us devised a plan. I would set a Boobytrap! I would leave another envelope in the letter box as bait, open my window shutters then watch out of my side window to catch the robber in action! I knew all those afternoons watching "Murder She Wrote" on Gold would come in handy eventually.
So, that's what I did. I laid a trap.
"Right now, his world has shrunk down to the size of his window". You said it sister!
Rear Window Trailer, Alfred Hitchcock
So, thank God for the odd distraction which comes with living in a City. There always seems to be something going on in the street outside my front window. The other night I couldn't sleep so got up at 2am and watched the Police for an hour who were definitely up to something juicy in the house opposite. You don't have 2 x Police Vans, 20 Policemen/women and 3 x Plain Clothes Officers going in and out of a house for an hour at 2am for nothing. It was great! Like watching The Bill Live. I never got to the bottom of what was actually happening but at least it killed an hour of my time.
So you can imagine my absolute delight when I had my own mystery to solve on Friday evening. The house I live in is split into 4 flats and 3 of us share a front door. Over the last couple of years we have twice been victims of hallway theft and had several bikes stolen from under our noses. The first time was when I was having my bedroom ceiling soundproofed (not as seedy as it sounds, I don't sleep in a gimp cell, my upstairs neighbours have wooden floor boards) and the workmen left the front door open for someone to walk straight into the hallway in broad daylight to nick our bikes. Then some may recall more recently the bikes we had got to replace the bikes that got stolen, got stolen and replaced by a kitten one night (I know, weird) after someone went out and didn't close the front door. So it's a bit of a problem. One of my friends said to me once after I'd had my 3rd handbag stolen on a night out, that getting robbed in London was a 'London Tax' and you have to accept people are always going to burgle you. I don't know if this is true or not or if I'm just unlucky but whatever the reason, it is exceedingly irritating.
Anyway, back to Friday night. My downstairs neighbour needed some Visitor Parking tickets for the next morning and wondered if anyone had any spares he could borrow. I said that I had some he could use but rather than waddle down in the darkness to put them through his front door (he has his own front door and letterbox separate to us), I would put them in an envelope and leave them poking out of the letter box I share with the 2 other neighbours. Within 3 minutes of me doing this, I heard someone take the tickets from the letterbox and assumed it was him. (I heard this as my front room is next to the shared front door and can unfortunately hear everything that goes on in the hallway). Then, about 10 minutes later, the downstairs neighbour emailed again saying "Great, let me know when I can collect the tickets". "Hang on", I thought, "someone has taken them already. And if it wasn't him, who was it?". This sent me into a rage. Had we, yet again, been the victim of an crime? Had someone been watching me put the tickets in the letterbox? I thought I was the only loser on my road with nothing better to do than stare out the window for hours. Did I suddenly have competition? Was the watcher ie me, being watched? *Shudder*
I phoned the downstairs neighbour immediately and told him what had happened, the tickets had been nicked! I had some more he could have however, he should come up to get them from me incase the thief struck again. Just as he came up to the front door, one of the other neighbour's came back from the pub so I told him what had happened. And the 3 of us devised a plan. I would set a Boobytrap! I would leave another envelope in the letter box as bait, open my window shutters then watch out of my side window to catch the robber in action! I knew all those afternoons watching "Murder She Wrote" on Gold would come in handy eventually.
So, that's what I did. I laid a trap.
The note I left on the back of the second envelope. Pretty succinct I think.
My side window giving a perfect view of the culprit.
To say this was the most thrilling thing to happen to me in a long while was a complete understatement. I was so pumped up with adrenaline I would have hopped around the front room if my pelvis would have allowed. Instead I had to be content with sitting in the front room with the lights off, armed with a torch (to shine in their face through the window as a surprise form of attack/torture) and my camera (to get a photo of them for the Police).
So, I sat and waited. And waited a bit more. All in all, I waited almost in an hour. I needed the loo but there was no way I was going to leave my position and miss the burgler in action. Wee's, I decided, are for wimps. Then I got hungry. It was dinner time by now and The Wig was at the pub, so there was no chance of any food until I'd caught the criminal. My flat is by no means large, but as I can only move around at a snails pace at the moment it would have taken me far too long to waddle to the kitchen and back to grab the Snickers I knew was hidden from The Wig in the cheese drawer of the fridge.
However, while still siting in darkness I noticed on my Blackberry that I had received an email. I thought I better open it and it turned out it was from the neighbour in the 4th Flat.
"Hi, I saw the 'For Flat A' envelope in our letterbox a while ago and took it down and posted it in his own mail box on the side of the wall. Hope that's ok. I just saw the second envelope in our front door and thought I best say something, haha! X"
Ha ha indeed . . . Mystery solved, all in a days time killing. Step aside Sherlock. . .
Another thing which is sort of keeping me from going insane (apart from solving crimes) is the post that I am currently receiving. Yesterday, The Wig and I had a parcel to collect from the Post Office and we had no idea what it was. I am due another Glossybox delivery soon (January's box) but I think that isn't due until next week. So after queueing up in the PO Sorting Office for nearly half an hour, I came home with the following package...
...from my brother in Australia! What a good and generous egg he is, and what a great idea for a gift!
I'd never heard of 'Sprogbox' before but I'm sure I'll be ordering from it myself at some point soon (we have 11 friends all having babies in the next 4 months). You can order gifts for a baby, or for a mum or for a dad! They have a really wide range of clothes, books, toiletries etc for all things maternity/birth related so its definitely worth checking out if you need to send a gift. Particularly if like me you are pelvically challenged and unable to leave the house and go to a shop.
Happy Browsing! xx
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