Reverse this Curse. NOW.

Yesterday I returned back to the flat I am staying in. While Kate is on holiday. To feed her cats. For which I had to get spare keys the other day when my lovely, lovely bag and its contents disappeared in a puff of crime wave last Wednesday afternoon in a seemingly innocuous pub in old Camden Town.

When I approached the flat at about 11.15 pm I saw that the blue burglar light was a-flash flash flashing on the side of the house.

Oh.

Great.

I called Dan for advice.

We decided that I should go in the flat, but stay on the phone to him. That way, I figured, if anyone leapt out at me I'd be able to commentate in a pithy and entertaining way. Live fear! Hurray. Or perhaps Dan would be able to shout at them really loudly down the phone and scare them. Or something. Anyway I had to go in and it seemed preferable to going in without being on the phone. Dan put me on speakerphone so he could continue making his pies or doing some needlepoint or whatever he does when he's alone.

I walked through the flat, flicking the lights on. Nope. No evidence of intruders. Must be the alarm playing up. The cats were catting around my feet and they didn't mention any crimes of any sort. It must be ok, I said to the sound of pastry being rolled on the other end of the phone.

I mean obviously except for the gaping hole and littering of smashed glass where someone has kicked the window in. Apart from that it looks perfectly norma.... oh. Um. Ah.

I think I cried at that point. Through my sobs I came to the conclusion that the alarm had scared them away as soon as the window was kicked in and that they hadn't taken anything. The neighbour confirmed this, and said that the police had been and said the same thing. So all that I needed to do was secure the flat so I wouldn't get murdered in my bed. Which, yes I know, is a terrible thing to say, but this is London and shit seems to go down here and I am not taking any chances.

So I stopped crying and looked around for a bit of wood and some nails, whilst Dan said things like "Have a look around. Can you see a bit of wood and some nails?" and paused in his housewifely activities. (I'm going to stop with the housewife remarks. I'm only doing it because recently Dan made a pie and... and I don't know why that was funny but leave me alone I have very little joke material when I'm being robbed so damned much all the time.)

Anyway, I couldn't. Find any. So I did what any grown up woman of independent means would do in a situation like this. I called my Daddy. Who got into his car and drove for nearly an hour to come and put big hearty bits of wood over afore-mentioned gaping hole in wall so that his seemingly be-cursed middle daughter didin't get attacked in the night.

By the time he left it was 2.30 am, and by the time I was happy enough to go to sleep it was now, at work the next day when I am no longer a-frighted, just very, very tired.

I feel like this MUST be karma. Is this karma? What can I do to reverse this? Does anyone have any orphans I can smile pityingly at, and into whose grubby little hands I can press a shiny new shilling? Or a puppy with a broken leg that I can rehabilitate using just the power of my love and generosity of spirit? Or something?

Come on. ANYTHING.