Sainte Cecile was burgled yesterday. I got the news from a friend in the village and felt like weeping. The children were even more upset than I was.
“You have to remember it is only things,” I told Olivia, trying to keep calm. “It is not a person.”
She looked horrified.
“Sainte Cecile is like a person to us,” she told me.
She is right of course. The thought of someone breaking in through the kitchen door, rummaging through our belongings and then eventually opting to steal the television before leaving is horrible. A stranger marching through the house, fiddling with things, breaking things, looking for anything of value is very upsetting. We all feel protective about our home and love it like a family member, which is only natural as it has been part of our lives for so many years. Even if I did hatch a callous plan to sell it earlier this year and move to the Savoie.
From here we also feel totally unable to do anything and cannot even ascertain what is missing apart from the flat-screen TV. One of my first thoughts was ‘I hope they didn’t find my UGGs’ – how sad is that? But I didn’t really feel I could ask my mother-in-law who kindly went to assess the damage to see if they were missing.
Meanwhile it has given the children more fodder for their ‘let’s go back home’ campaign.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009
Oh, Helena, I am so, so sorry. It isn’t just possessions having been taken, as you rightly say it’s your home having been violated and I really do feel for you. We were burgled in England – there wasn’t anything in the house (it was between lets) so they took every last thing they could find in the garden instead including very valuable statues and old terracotta pots that my mother had bought in the ’50s. Fully insured and possibly replaceable, I still wept when I learnt of it.
And it happens so often in Italy to isolated holiday homes, i ladri turn up with vans and literally empty the entire house including taps, light fittings and, yes, even the kitchen sink.
But, that said, don’t berate yourselves by saying it wouldn’t have happened had you been there – friends of mine were burgled earlier in the summer in the English countryside whilst they were sitting having supper downstairs in the kitchen!
No matter where you live these days, it comes with the territory. Thank goodness your mother-in-law lives close by, you’re very fortunate. But why not use it as an excuse to maybe pop back for a few days just to reassure yourself everything else is OK?
Poor Sainte Cecile was feeling neglected and wanted some TLC.
Hold her tight and say you’ll be back for Xmas (?) and the house
in Savoie was just a joke. What better way to get attention than
to be ‘violated’? She looked pretty lonely to me in the photo.
I’m sorry to hear this happened. It must be hard not being there to see what they went through, but I too am glad it is only things and that everyone is safe.
Helena, I’m sorry to hear that.
It’s a horrible feeling, and must be much harder being so far away.