Carry on Burglar

What would you think if this flyer popped through your letter box as it did ours on Saturday morning? Would you panic like David and start checking that the house insurance is up to date? Would you hoot hysterically like Jane Opposite at the dramatics of it all? Would you worry, like Ruby Over The Road, that while we’re all at the Stewarts house and our houses are empty, we’ll all be turned over?

Anyway, I’m not going. I’m not missing Strictly Come Dancing for a bunch of hysterics and Marjorie’s macaroons. “I didn’t put my macaroons on there because we’d just get everyone turning up to be fed and not because their attendance is vital” Marjorie informed me yesterday afternoon when she popped round with a beef stew because “well, you can’t cook with that ankle can you? And what with David playing golf and all…..” She should have seen me on Saturday, hopping on one leg, laughing hysterically at Bea who, in apparent sympathy (or trying to steal my thunder) had fallen over in a pile of leaves in Dulwich Park and had hurt her left knee. It’s a vivid purple and puffy.

“Can you really afford not to dear?” she asked in response to the news that I would not be attending on Friday night. “I mean, the way things are today……” she trailed off and looked out of the window along the Avenue as if she expected to see three rapists, two cat burglars and a mugger hovering.

“David will probably go” I said, one eye on Airport 77 – I love a good disaster movie. “Can I go mummy?” Mac piped up. “Oooh no dearie, not to a grown ups meeting” she said, patting him so hard on his head that her bracelets nearly left a dent in his cranium. “Not really for Little Ones” she mouthed to me as she made to leave “Not with the statistics that Frank’s preparing” she added with a grimace.

So. We’re going to be scared to death by our very own Neighbourhood Watch Chairman. Great. Petrified of our own shadows and forced to eat macaroons.

David has agreed to go to the meeting “to escape Strictly” – the man has no taste. So, while he’ll be listening to Frank’s statistics, setting up vigilante groups and being issued with whistles and torches (oh yes, I forgot to tell you that little nugget didn’t I?) I shall be deep in glitter, lycra and glitz.

I think I’ve got the better deal don’t you?