My bicycle was stolen in the night.
I was woken up at 7.45am by my downstairs neighbour, who told me the bad news. To be honest, the loss of the bike was not a worry to me. It has been chained up outside my house for the past two years and the only time I used it recently was during the tube strike. It only cost £50 in the first place, and had gone rusty and was extremely difficult to ride. I would estimate it had a black market value of £10 maximum. If they had rung my door bell and asked to have it I would probably have given them a tenner to take it off my hands. I am more upset about the loss of the lock, which was undoubtedly more valuable and is now presumably been cut off and thrown away.
The most annoying thing is the level of damage that the thieves have caused in making off with their booty. To release the bike and lock they simply kicked in the post it was attached to. I will need to get this repaired or replaced which will doubtless cost me over £100. I could have bought them two more brand new, non-rusty (though still fairly rubbish) bikes.
On top of that I was woken at 7.45am to be told the news. Why did she do that? It's not like getting me out of bed was going to make any difference. Did she think I was going to organise a posse to catch the varmints that had done this? Did she just want to be able to see my disappointed face? Or did she think, "A-ha! I'll wake him up early, so he can see what it's like for people who have proper jobs!"?
I would have paid another twenty quid for an extra hours sleep.
So, what with fence, lock and loss of earnings due to tiredness I am around £200 down on yesterday.
The only positive thing is that I've got rid of that bloody awful bike.
The lesson is, don't put a lock on things you don't want to keep.
