Bastardi laddri (bastard thieves)

Yesterday we had to go out for paint for the outside of the house and decided to combine this with a trip to Ikea on the outskirts of Rome in search of new garden dining chairs.

MrFF had an old can of the paint with our name and a date in March 2003 written on it but no colour code, we took that with us.  The nice man in shop looked at the tin and went off, he returned with a 2003 diary, consulted the appropriate page which had an entry included the name of the decorator who painted the house soon after we bought it.  We were told it would take half an hour to produce more paint so we went off for a fruitless trip to the local builders yard. The new 14 litre can was waiting again with our name on it and again the 2003  date, at least this time there was a computer generated label.  Mr FF put everything in the boot and pulled over the cover that conceals the contents of the boot.

The Ikea visit was a waste of time, there were very few outdoor chairs and none we liked.  We had some lunch, the food was dreadful and I was not allowed to have mashed potato with my veggie meatballs I had to have couscous, that was the rule. When we left Ikea there was some kind of fly past, their equivalent of the red arrows but not quite the same standard.  We stopped briefly for gelato, to take away the taste of the awful food, then headed towards the autostrada and home.  For some reason I glanced into the rear of the car and saw one of the windows, the small quarter light at the drivers side was broken.  I told MrFF who misunderstood and thought I meant the back window, he said it was a trick of the light.  Eventually he understood, we stopped, there was a hole in the window, broken glass on the back seat and the rear seat folded down presumably to check the contents of the boot, two cans of paint and a new brush which were of no interest.

We’d obviously been targeted at Ikea, but not noticed the damage when we left, because of our UK plates and the assumption the boot was full of our luggage.  We went back into Ikea hoping they had cctv but they said the car park did not belong to them however they called security.  A nice young man arrived, I was oddly pleased to see despite being a private security company he was wearing a gun. 

He took our details and checked in the car park where the broken glass confirmed it happened there.  He completed a form but didn’t offer us a copy and told us to report it to the police, which he said we could do when we got home.  We don't plan to bother our local police, they will do nothing.

We set off and the heavens opened. We stopped at the services and attempted to block the hole with one of my supermarket bags for life.  Our car, which we have only had 3 months is a Skoda, no sign of a garage except in Rome but since Skoda are part of VW we went to a garage near where we exit the autostrada.  They couldn’t have been nicer, ordered new glass to be delivered next week, booked us in for the repair, knocked out the remaining broken glass and patched the hole with some plastic. They even vacuumed the broken glass from the back seats and gave our coats a good shake too.

This incident has out a real damper on things.  Our car is a very distinctive colour, its 4 years old but looks smart and more expensive than it was.  We always worry when travelling to and from Italy, we never stop off in cities and always book accommodation that has secure parking.  We never expected this to happen when out shopping, now we will think twice about going anywhere.  Happily today it’s hot, we are at home and it’s so peaceful and quiet.  We are forecast good weather for the at least 10 days.   Time to consider and take stock, some days the world is such an ugly place, many awful things are happening, much worse than our little incident but we must not forget the good things and the good people.  Take care.