The sound of silence and extra ballast

Dear readers out there, you may have read about my crime ridden 2007, having a push-bike stolen off the roof of the boat last april was the start of it, followed by having another push-bike stolen from where I work.

followed by, and not necessarily in the right order: having my car broken into at Tottenham, having a friends car broken into next to mine at Cheshunt, watching kids rifling through a stolen handbag and reporting it to not very interested police, my flat was burgled in Croydon, my friends car in East London had paint stripper thrown over it a month or so ago and now it comes back to me.
I had my car broken into - again. Different car, different location ( Springfield -so not far from Tottenham) this time my window was smashed and my dashboard ripped apart to remove a nissan branded stereo, specific to my car only and a nissan branded dvd sat nav that speaks only japanese. they also took my driving glasses and some home made mini disks. Bravo brave theif, Bra-fucking-vo.
nice haul you took there, worth Zero pounds to anyone but me.

Im a little paranoid about theft at the best of times but it still happens regardless if you worry about it or not. I don't know if people who worry about crime less have more or less crime happen to them, Im thinking of trying not to worry about it anymore. Im insured comprehensively but even my insurance doesn't really cover it fully and I have to shell out a weeks wages in excess to get it fixed, and lose most of my no claims.
As my car is a japanese import I have to wait ages for some glass to arrive and for the moment Im driving round with a non-opening plexiglass window.

Just what you want when driving to france, as was my plans last week.
12 hours of driving (each way) with no stereo and a window that doesnt open.

Having driven to france and dropped off a load of excess baggage belonging to Mr X we returned with an equally full car but this time is was mostly consumable. The suspension was creaking a bit and we've had to spread it around the boat to stop us from listing too much.

to add to my annoyance last week, on top of the car being broken I also bruised my ego last week by falling off my motorbike on the way to work.
I was casually cruising through mostly static traffic queuing on the A40, then Wham! my hand guard caught the back of a transit pick-up. I haven't quite adjusted myself to the width of the bars, so a gap I could have cruised through before with my previous bikes presented itself as a bit of a challenge. Clipping the back of the pick-up sent me off to the side and seeing a nice shiny Audi in front of me I opted for the lower cost option of not claiming on insurance and putting my bike unceremoniously on the floor. I jumped up and saluted the van driver I had fallen in front of and winked. He jumped out, helped me pick the bike up and wheeled it to the side. the Audi driver seemed most concerned about me and was worried I might be hurt, or perhaps the bike was damaged. Since the bike is pretty much designed to fall over without being damaged I wasn't worried at all. There was a nice rubber mark on his car though where my front wheel, er kissed his bumper.

The next day I had the mother of all bruises appear on my thigh from where the bar had swung round and hit me. I felt nothing at the time.

The boat is now over at West Drayton awaiting a weekend when we can cruise it up to Rickmansworth. I've had it up to ya-ya with London and its crime ridden streets.