Things that disappear!

Sometimes when we travel from Vigo to Porto airport, or the other way around, on the AUTNA bus, we like to sit in a position where we can keep an eye on what goes on around the luggage hold of the bus when it stops at various places. Quite what we would do if one of us noticed someone walking off with my spotty suitcase or Phil’s more sober dark blue one remains a mystery. Perhaps we would rush down the length of the bus shouting and creating mayhem? But it has never arisen and besides, there is rarely anything of great value in the suitcases. It would be purely the nuisance factor of our clothes disappearing. Oh, and the cables for recharging the laptop, the iPads and iPhones. The valuable stuff stays with us inside the bus.

I mention this because I have just read about a jewellery dealer whose suitcase disappeared from the train on which he was travelling. In his case he had gems worth more than a million pounds. He confidently put the case on the luggage rack and when he got to Rugby realised it was no longer there. Good grief! First of all, imagine travelling around with that much valuable stuff in your case. And then, as cool as you like, to place the bag on the luggage rack and ignore it for most of your journey. I would have to have it chained to my wrist somehow, discreetly so that it was not too obvious that I was seriously attached to the contents! Does travel insurance cover such incidents? 

What a cavalier attitude to transporting wealth around. I get paranoid enough when travelling, making sure I have not lost our passports, our boarding cards, the purse of Spanish money, the purse of English money, my card wallet and anything else of value. It’s a good job I am not rich; I couldn’t deal with the stress!

The police report that around here a number of cars have been stolen by gangs who approach the driver as he pulls up, threaten the driver with axes, insist on being given the car keys and then drive off. These are usually pretty posh cars, BMWs and Range Rovers and the like. My daughter and I have agreed that if anyone were to threaten her, she would grab the baby and hand over the car keys. In the end, it’s only property!

I was talking about this with our next door neighbour this morning before I set off for my run. He is a builder and apologised for not having yet been able to do the contracted work on our roof, fitting a cage to the chimney pots so that suicidal birds cannot fly down and perish in the fireplace behind the fitted fire. His ladders have been stolen from the roof of his van - for the second time! He hopes to replace them, again, this week. He can no longer get insurance cover for keeping tools in his van, ever since thieves cut through the side of his van and stole £4000 worth of equipment.

And ours is supposed to be a nice area!

I was reminded of the period, more than ten years ago now, when I began to think someone was building a VW Golf out of mine. On two occasions I went out in the morning to find that someone had stolen the windscreen, simply cutting the rubber surround and walking off with the glassware! Most spectacular was when the thieves detached the radiator grill and headlights. You can understand my slight paranoia, I am sure!

Apart from discouraging news about thieves and rascals, today has not been bad, although very different from yesterday. There was frost everywhere first thing. Also the blue sky had gone, replaced by grey clouds and a rather damp chill in the air, in contrast to Sunday’s crisp cold.

So it goes!