My House Beautiful: a burglary breakthrough!

Earlier this summer we were burgled. It wasn't an all-singing, all-dancing clearout (that happened first time round about 15 years ago) but rather an annoying inconvenience. A bit of cash, a couple of pieces of jewellery and, last but definitely not least, a 2010 FIFA World Cup computer game went missing.

The police arrived promptly and made several follow-up calls and visits to check all was well, take statements and see if we needed help from a victim support group. The attention was, to put it frankly, a bit overwhelming but it transpired there had been a spate of similar burglaries all using the same implement to prise open back doors. No state of the art hi-tech break-in this one - the thief had used a garden fork!

We discovered ours about a week later, thrown behind the garden shed from which it had been taken - the lock had been forced.

All our neighbours were alerted and asked to be on the lookout and it transpired that one had heard a loud thumping sound coming from our garden at around the time of the break-in. My husband Simon is pretty sure the intruder heard him pull up in his car in the driveway and rushed out the back just as he was putting his key in the lock.

And the good news is... we are getting new back doors to replace the broken old ones, which had become a challenge to open and close. They are coming from the Folding Sliding Door Company in Bradford, Yorkshire, who made the fabulous doors pictured here; foldingslidingdoors.com

There's a silver lining in every cloud...

Bye for now

Julia

Catch up on Julia's blog