Orange Internet Everywhere

Well I wanted something to happen, and it did!! My internet access got cut off. It's been off for over a week, all through a bank mix-up that meant the payment due at the end of March didn't go through. I've been in touch with the bank concerned. I've phoned Orange at God-knows-how-much-but-EXPENSIVE-per-minute-rates and been kept on hold to make sure it was even more expensive....4 times!! The last time they assured me my internet would get switched back on within 24 hours but I am still waiting a week later. Thanks to Bar Galeo - where they are sick of seeing me - Bar L'Era and the car parking space outside Mark and Julie's home in Campo Rosso, I have been able to stay online using Wi-Fi, but not as much as before (obviously).
Today, I got another freelance job. I have to write 15 articles, each 400 words long, and submit them all by Monday.
I can write in the house, but I need the internet for research.

Burglaries

Just an update to say there have been more break-ins, not only at Campo Rosso but in the campo too, though I'm not sure exactly where or what was taken.
Also, it is said that police have recovered a lot of the stolen TV's. They were in an unoccupied house in Campo Rosso and several people have had their belongings returned. Seems fingerprints were not looked for, which I find hard to believe.

Campo Rosso

Funny I should be talking about the change in the street lighting recently, because now a neighbourhood urbanization is suffering what I thought might happen here, but in this case, I fear the street lights have nothing to do with it.

10 break-ins recently, this on an estate with maximum 100 dwellings, I would have thought. Hard to tell when they are all so close together.

Anyway, it looks like someone has been watching the houses, and knows those which are holiday homes and those which aren't.

Within the past two weeks or so, there has been a spate of robberies; someone stealing TV sets mainly apparently. Anyone want to buy a TV?

The other morning, a resident left for work, and within minutes his house was entered, setting off the alarms he had wisely fitted. It seems that the perpetrators might have been caught on CCTV so with any luck that will bring an end to the current spate of thefts.

I'm not terribly worried about my house getting done.

They'd have to get past the 4 incredibly stupid dogs my partner has accumulated first, and while I'm convinced they'd do no damage, they'd bark the place down....probably in welcome to the intruder.....but anyway, I'm always here, and he's always here, so between us, we'd sort it all out.

I've already had intruders in my garden. They broke the chain-link fence and stole some of my bigger palm trees I had in pots. And the dogs slept, the useless gits!

The worst thing about having intruders/burglars in your house, is knowing they have been there. I'm convinced that even if they didn't steal anything, your feeling of safety/security, whatever word fits, is gone...for a time at least...after your visit from burglars. And it is not a pleasant feeling.

I got done before, many moons ago. My little twins were only days old but I had captured many photographs of them on my camera, a not inexpensive SLR one, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

The burglars who came in the night, so silently none of us knew, stole not only the cash I had stowed in my house to pay the mortgage, my entire collection of 50+ original artist CD's (nowadays they are all free using .torrent files) and my camera.
I put the word out on the street. Just give me the film back from the camera (this was pre-digital). Nothing.....nada.
These pictures were irreplaceable.

Thieves just don't seem to understand that when they 'tan' a house, people aren't that bothered by the loss of their TV/Video player/money/whatever.

It is the things with memories attached that are the most painful - jewellery ( not that I ever had any), cameras with photos, memories. These are irreplaceable.

Don't do it.