Guard Chicken

I may justifiably be accused of exaggeration at times, but this is not the cockerel I'm complaining about. It hasn't been much use against it either.

I haven't been very inspired today as I'm definitely not firing an all cylinders. I didn't hear the beast this morning, but that was because Alexander woke me up even earlier, but at least that meant I could put some earplugs in again. I did try to get a pic of it this evening but I think it was having a kip. Bloody cheek.

So instead you have this Portuguese lady. I promised Dolly I would tell this tale at some point.... I think it also proves I'm not really a light sleeper, so the cockerel must be LOUD.

In November 2009, when I was about 3 months pregnant, I woke up in the middle of the night needing a wee (this happened a fair bit). On my way to the bathroom I saw the hall light was on, so I went down to turn it off. I looked into the sitting room and saw some of the drawers and cupboard doors were open. It wasn't impossible that Mr HPW was looking for something and left it like that, but then I noticed that I could see the street light through the front door. I knew that was wrong because we have a wooden storm door and I heard him shut it when he came in that evening. Then looking more closely at the piles of stuff our house is usually adorned with I noticed some things were missing - including my handbag.

Cue quite a bit of shouting and calls to the police. Turns out the storm door was locked but we'd forgotten to lock the inner door - somebody had forced the outside door with a spade they'd thoughtfully left behind (turns out it was ours and they got it from the shed, which wasn't locked either.... I'm hoping this is a cautionary tale to you about home security....) They gone off with a lot of tat I was going to sell on Ebay and some booze.

I was quite annoyed as my handbag was more valuable to me than the contents; I got it on my honeymoon in Italy. I'd been burgled before (actually a previous boyfriend had failed to lock the door that time too - clearly I have bad luck when it comes to opportunists, unless somebody's trying my door every night) and they'd thrown my handbag over the fence, so I thought I had a chance of getting my nice one back if I had a quick look in the street. I should add it was pitch dark and I had no idea what the time was. I couldn't see it, but as I walked back to the house I saw two men hanging about on the opposite corner, but I thought they were coming back from the pub.

About 10 minutes later the police turned up to take a statement, saying it was a quiet shift and they wouldn't wait til morning, although then I realised it was about 6.45am. I sat in the sitting room and gave my statement to the man and Mr HPW was in the dining room talking to the woman. I'd just finished telling him what happened when I heard some men talking in the hall. I should explain you have to lock our door with a key, but the police had followed us in and just shut it behind them.... I thought maybe it was SOCO arriving early too so I gave the policeman a quizzical look, but then the men started shouting something unintelligible in Glaswegian, starting 'Gie us...[the money?]'. By this point I could see them through the doorway and one of them had a hat pulled down over his face and waving a carving knife about. However, he didn't see me, because simultaneously the policewoman had come into the hall to talk to her colleague and he must have thought she lived here... she backed straight back into the dining room and he started jabbing round the doorframe with his knife.

Me and the policeman were a bit bemused, as you can imagine (all this happened in a matter of seconds), then he ran out of the doorway and grabbed the man, who was surprised because he must have thought everyone was in the other room. At this point they realised it was the police and ran off (they'd taken quite a few bottles of booze on their first trip which might explain why they didn't see the police car parked outside).

Where the chicken comes in is.... when Mr HPW was trapped in the dining room with a screaming woman and Johnny from the Shining outside the door, the first thing he could see to use as a weapon was this....

The policeman came round a few days later and said he'd thought at the time we were about to star in Crimewatch... I should add that both of them were caught; one got 21 mths and the knifewielder got 51 mths. I'm pretty sure they were the men I saw outside, and I gave quite a detailed statement. They both pled guilty so I was deprived of my star witness turn! Don't have bad dreams.