Don't panic Sally
Monday 14 May Update - see Postscript at end Saturday night 11.30pm ish:
I may delete this in the morning, but for now I need to be here.
Loud rat tat tat on my front door, a few metres from where I am sat. It is 11.10pm
I am not expecting any one
It is dark in this quiet village, no street lights.
To bang on my door the person has to walk up my drive and climb some steps.
They have to know where they are going.
I phoned the police.
Police - are you expecting anyone.
No, and anyone that knows me, knows I do not answer the door after dark.
They will send a patrol car to drive through the village (which consists of one road)
Do I want them to knock on my door? How will they know which house (no street numbers) Its ok Miss Sally, we have ... er.. we have 'sat nav'. Chuckle, yes I know what you mean. No, its ok.
You relax now. Yes, thank you.
Quiet.
Maybe someone was banging on my door for sanctuary and now they are laid on the steps bleeding to death (I have been watching 'The Transporter' on tv!)
Maybe I will get up in the morning and find something dreadful waiting for me.
Maybe they are in the back garden waiting for me to react; its just open fields beyond.
I ring again, I want to say; yes please, please knock on my door and walk round the back and shine your bright lights up down and around every inch of my garden and the field beyond and and and and
ring ring ... putting you through ... sorry, all our agents are busy, please hold ...
please hold ...
please hold ...
still holding when
Five minutes later very bright lights very slowly drive up and down - full beam and then some, plus slow red and blue on top .... two, three, four, six times past my house.
please hold ...
Oh f... it.
11.55 pm Blogging it feels more connected
12.06
12.20
Why ?
Who ?
Who and Why ?
It is so quiet here, you can hear people walking past along the road, after the pub at the end of the village closes. I didn't hear anything until the resounding banging on the door - and it wasn't just banging, it was a proper knock on the door, five raps, in a normal rhythmn. (I am analysing this thing to death so I can sleep tonight).
But then, I was listening to Joe Cocker (he has aged !) on Parkinson tv, and he still rocks. But not loudly. I never have the tv loud (tinnitus) and if my semi-detached neighbours wanted to let me know it was, (because they always, always go to bed at 10.30) they could do what they used to do when my Bump was a teenager permanently listening to loud music, and phone me !
Its quiet, I don't know what who or why ... but someone did it deliberately.
Of that there is no mistake.
Did whoever it was stay around long enough to see the police car. That is all I could do to show them I'M NOT SCARED OF YOU.
I HAVE THE BIG GUYS ON MY SIDE.
You see, this is the only situation in which I wish I did not live alone.
This is one of many situations when I wish my Airedale was still with me.
I would have let her out and that would have sorted it. Grrrrrrrrrr. (dog knashes teeth)
but the when I had my big brave Airedale I never had any bother, never was concerned, and then, then, I could run.
As I said to the police on the phone the firs time ... I am disabled and I live alone.
That was enough ... to get a result with the police attending.
Is it enough ... to make this sort of thing happen.
Who have I annoyed recently ?
The teenager in the field (his grandfather's field) this afternoon, cutting patterns in the field with the sit on mower for 1 hr and 45 minutes. I retreated indoors.
Social Services two weeks ago - to the LGO. Nah.
That's it.
The Stalker was warned off by the police four years ago.
The violent neanderthal farmer living a mile away was nine years ago (although the calming influence of his father is no more, he died last month .... no that's ridiculous) (Although he did take a gun to his first wife and I don't even need to add 'allegedly' to that statement.)
12.30am
go to bed Sally.
Take a beta blocker or two and .... no, that not a good idea with the amitryptiline that eases the pain so I can sleep. Ah well, make a another cup of tea, start another book.
POSTSCRIPT:
Monday 14.5.07
I said I want(ed) a BIG DOG ... a friend sent me this cartoon with the dog barking at a tramp, but tramps, in my experience, are harmless ...
I may delete this in the morning, but for now I need to be here.
Loud rat tat tat on my front door, a few metres from where I am sat. It is 11.10pm
I am not expecting any one
It is dark in this quiet village, no street lights.
To bang on my door the person has to walk up my drive and climb some steps.
They have to know where they are going.
I phoned the police.
Police - are you expecting anyone.
No, and anyone that knows me, knows I do not answer the door after dark.
They will send a patrol car to drive through the village (which consists of one road)
Do I want them to knock on my door? How will they know which house (no street numbers) Its ok Miss Sally, we have ... er.. we have 'sat nav'. Chuckle, yes I know what you mean. No, its ok.
You relax now. Yes, thank you.
Quiet.
Maybe someone was banging on my door for sanctuary and now they are laid on the steps bleeding to death (I have been watching 'The Transporter' on tv!)
Maybe I will get up in the morning and find something dreadful waiting for me.
Maybe they are in the back garden waiting for me to react; its just open fields beyond.
I ring again, I want to say; yes please, please knock on my door and walk round the back and shine your bright lights up down and around every inch of my garden and the field beyond and and and and
ring ring ... putting you through ... sorry, all our agents are busy, please hold ...
please hold ...
please hold ...
still holding when
Five minutes later very bright lights very slowly drive up and down - full beam and then some, plus slow red and blue on top .... two, three, four, six times past my house.
please hold ...
Oh f... it.
11.55 pm Blogging it feels more connected
12.06
12.20
Why ?
Who ?
Who and Why ?
It is so quiet here, you can hear people walking past along the road, after the pub at the end of the village closes. I didn't hear anything until the resounding banging on the door - and it wasn't just banging, it was a proper knock on the door, five raps, in a normal rhythmn. (I am analysing this thing to death so I can sleep tonight).
But then, I was listening to Joe Cocker (he has aged !) on Parkinson tv, and he still rocks. But not loudly. I never have the tv loud (tinnitus) and if my semi-detached neighbours wanted to let me know it was, (because they always, always go to bed at 10.30) they could do what they used to do when my Bump was a teenager permanently listening to loud music, and phone me !
Its quiet, I don't know what who or why ... but someone did it deliberately.
Of that there is no mistake.
Did whoever it was stay around long enough to see the police car. That is all I could do to show them I'M NOT SCARED OF YOU.
I HAVE THE BIG GUYS ON MY SIDE.
You see, this is the only situation in which I wish I did not live alone.
This is one of many situations when I wish my Airedale was still with me.
I would have let her out and that would have sorted it. Grrrrrrrrrr. (dog knashes teeth)
but the when I had my big brave Airedale I never had any bother, never was concerned, and then, then, I could run.
As I said to the police on the phone the firs time ... I am disabled and I live alone.
That was enough ... to get a result with the police attending.
Is it enough ... to make this sort of thing happen.
Who have I annoyed recently ?
The teenager in the field (his grandfather's field) this afternoon, cutting patterns in the field with the sit on mower for 1 hr and 45 minutes. I retreated indoors.
Social Services two weeks ago - to the LGO. Nah.
That's it.
The Stalker was warned off by the police four years ago.
The violent neanderthal farmer living a mile away was nine years ago (although the calming influence of his father is no more, he died last month .... no that's ridiculous) (Although he did take a gun to his first wife and I don't even need to add 'allegedly' to that statement.)
12.30am
go to bed Sally.
Take a beta blocker or two and .... no, that not a good idea with the amitryptiline that eases the pain so I can sleep. Ah well, make a another cup of tea, start another book.
POSTSCRIPT:
Monday 14.5.07
I said I want(ed) a BIG DOG ... a friend sent me this cartoon with the dog barking at a tramp, but tramps, in my experience, are harmless ...
and following on from the comments and other email friends' advice, I have come to the conclusion that it was a speculative burglar, and not a nice one like Janet and Allen Ahlberg's Burglar Bill.
I still want a dog, but I will need a dog walker. The Cinnamon Trust may be able to help, but that project will have to wait until the building adaptations for disabled facilities are completed. Which facilities will have to take account of space required for a dog bed and feeding bowls (and toys) - oh can't you tell I am excited by this fantasy already ! Thanks Charles and Blogging Mone for your supportive comments and suggestions and email friends for support.
posted by Sally at 12:31 am
10 Comments:
O Lord, poor Sally! The fact that you have not posted since, I hope means that all is peaceful.
It doesn't make sense, does it? Somebody meaning you harm would hardly announce their presence like that; kids (if your village kids are out at that hour; they certainly are here) playing knock-down-ginger you would hear giggling and scampering.
Wierd.
Just waking up ... all seems well. All IS well. No blood on the doorstep. Nothing untoward obvious.
Thank you Charles, no I does not make sense. The fact of it happening is a constant in my mind now, which I have to find a way of getting into perspective.
Musings for the record: ...
I don't think it was done as a prank by kids who should have been in bed, or thick ignorant villagers returning from the pub (who would have to be thick and ignorant to do that).
The knock was a grown up rythmical knock. Not a quick bang bang and away. A purposeful ordinary everyday knock, such that I got up and went to the door (heavily curtained) and called - Who is there ? straightaway .. because my first reaction was it was someone coming to tell me something important, at that late hour.
No answer, then I felt freaking worried.
So it feels deliberate. If I was easily afear'd I would take into account that the neanderthal farmer now returns to the next village each evening to visit his widowed mother who has Alzheimers (with live in care) and that could easily involve driving past my cottage (as he used to do regularly, slowing down waiting to see if I saw him) as he was being threateningly bolshie towards me only last year at the village fete. Just because he owns the adjoining 1,000 acres he thinks he can get away with it !
Therefore I now have to forget about it, not to let it affect me.
But be prepared this evening.
Or throw a party and invite everyone I know for support !
Why not get one of those recordings of a threatening dog growl, which is set off by a sensor? I've been severely tempted to do that myself once when troubled by trespassing village kids.
Unless....it was the equivalent of one of those telephone calls burglars make, to see if a house is empty (plenty of people leave lights on and TV going to fool them, so they can't judge by that).
Just an opportunist, and your voice scared him off.
Ask neighbours if anyone else has had this experience? Hopefully your cop car came quickly and gave him the s***s.
I am seriously tempted to get the dog, not just a recording - out walking the other week I met a lovely 2 year old Airedale, so composed so intelligent, and discovered there is a breeder of Airedales just over the river. So tempted. Because I can't have any sort of fire alarm either due to the Meniere's sensitivity to noise, vibration and flashing lights (see how much fun I would be in a disco ! ooh that ages me).
Your second suggestion makes sense, even though the van was on the drive suggesting I was at home. So, thanks for that thought Charles, I have just emailed the local neighbourhood watch co-ordinator, asking if there have been any other reports, and reminding him that I am a vulnerable person on his watch.
The cop car did come quickly, but someone can walk a long way away in the ten minutes it took the car to arrive in the village.
Anyway, I will go with the 'opportunist' explanation, which is far preferable to all the other thoughts I have had.
Thanks. (You are invited to my party.) But the bitch isn't.
Go for the dog! If you have an airedale-shaped hole in your life, as I suspect you have, then fill it while you are still young enough to benefit you both.
I believe I have mentioned The Cinnamon Trust if you have need of help in the dog-walking bit?
Which/what bitch?
I think you could do with an assisstant dog, who is also a good watch dog (doesn't have to be too brave, but good at grumbling) and some nice company - after work, of course.
Oh yes, a good grumbling sort of dog, would suit me to perfection. I am now seriously enamoured of the idea. When my Airedale was with me, there were burglaries across the road and around me, but never me. Anyone that came within site of my Airedale got a very loud bark accompanied by excited tail wagging, but they didn't know that was wanting to play and say hello.
If I am to take this seriously, I have to find daily exercisers to take it out in all weathers - because I am not wearing one of those wheelchair capes - and it would need someone else to train it to behave with the wheelchair. Airedales are notorious adolescents, chasing after hares, balls, butterflies, rabbits, postmen, anything on a bicycle, the wind.
Yes,it would have to be an Airedale because having had one superbly handsome Airedale lady, composed, intelligent, discerning, handsome, any old labrador, chocolate or yellow,or any other breed, just would not do.
Of course this, like many other projects (getting wheelchair using friends to visit me) would be dependent on the adaptations being finished and me back here after being in temporary accommodation for three months.
A life on hold.
Still waiting to hear from the Local Government Ombudsman.
And the Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator.
And to say, of course, thank you both very much for the support. It has enabled me to have a better grounded reaction to the events of last night, and to wait for this evening in a much happier frame of mind.
I don't know the airedale breed at all; can they be trained to be assistance dogs? when they've calmed down a bit, that is!
Have a peaceful night.
Can they be trained ?!
Airedales were used as police dogs before German Sheperds, but the plods found the Airedales far too intelligent for them.
(I know that was uncalled for after the bobbies' assistance last night, but its true.)
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