Stolen Bike

A week ago today we got Dan off to school and frantically prepared for work, just like every week-day morning. I had the furthest to go so I had the car, Hanna had her trusty bike; only she didn't.

Every night for years her ladies' mountain bike, complete with wicker basket, has been parked in our drive, chained to the drainpipe. She uses it every day to go to her job at the school or to pop to the village shop. It's not valuable or special but she has had it for 15 years and it's hers. Anyone else who rides it is cursed and will fall off.

Anyway, at 3 minutes to nine, we stepped out and locked the front door behind us. There was the bike: gone! Someone had crept silently along the side of the house in the night. 'Not an easy task as we have a cluttered driveway which is surfaced with coarse, noisy gravel. We don't have security lighting because we don't need it. Our neighbour next door has enough lighting for both of us. Any movement in our drive sets off a response like Colditz Castle during a mass break-out. His lights even come on when I stand too near the bathroom window upstairs, in my own home.

Our neighbour across the street has another security light that comes on if anyone walks up our road. It's a busy bus route and cars go by at all hours, yet no-one saw or heard anything. This was clearly an expert bicycle-thief at work and our bike was probably already in a container on its way to the Continent.

If you want to make an insurance claim, you first have to inform the police. You might also hope that someone has handed you bike in, or found it somewhere. You might even hope that the police have apprehended a villain in possession of your stolen bike, locked him in the cells and thrown away the key. Dream on! The police used to give you a crime number, but now they give you an incident number. I suppose that not all incidents turn out to be crimes? Anyway, our bike being stolen is now an incident, not a crime. We decided not to bother with the insurance and our friend across the way generously gave Hanna her old bike to use. End of story.

But, hold on. Isn't that Hanna's old bone-shaker chained to the bike rack outside the doctor's surgery? How did it get there? Apparently it's been there all week, abandoned by its forgetful owner.

Conclusion: Either we live in a very nice neighbourhood or the bike simply isn't worth stealing.