A rant
Stirling is a nest of thieves and vandals.
Tourists don’t notice it much because the city centre is peppered with CCTV cameras but where we are, literally around the corner, theft and vandalism rule supreme.
The perpetrators are drunken thugs, small time smack-heads and delinquent children, but it is impossible to tell who creates most havoc. We had our wing mirror smashed on at least four occassions but we have not yet had our tires slashed. One evening, in a spectacular display, a drugged student lost control over his car half way up the hill and careered at high speed into a row of parked cars at the side of the road, bounced off and veered right across the other side where he totalled a further lot of parked cars before speeding off into the night with screeching tires.
Muggings are rare (see CCTV) but burglary is common. While we were in London for a few days somebody walked into our flat and straight back out again with whatever valuables could be carried. That wasn’t much and because I don’t care much about material stuff it took me a while to notice anything amiss; when I saw the dust-free spot on the chest where once the TV stood. They left the computer which says a lot about my husband’s hardware set-up.
A few days ago a pensioner was discovered dead in her flat which had been burgled just two months previously. It looks like murder. I am not surprised. The cops are all over the streets like a rash. At times if feels as if the whole neighbourhood is under siege.
Stirling has more cops than I have seen anywhere else but they usually sit around the station chomping on doughnuts and pretty much restrict themselves to hassling the mentally ill.
Today we noticed that somebody has nicked our lawnmower. It was just a manual mower 3 years old with rust-stains all over – total value perhaps £5. We can’t have an electric mower because we live on the second floor and our garden is across from others, so there is no way to connect it. There would be little point anyway, with a lawn the size of a large handkerchief.
When I had a job, a couple of years ago, the theft would have registered as a minor nuissance but the seventy quid the thing cost new now represents the lion-share of our weekly benefit. We can’t afford to buy another lawnmower. In addition to that, the manual models were about to be discontinued. These days it seems that even people with handkerchief-sized lawns find the space to build a shed in which to house a power-mower. Either that or they pave over their lawns. I have a mind to do just that but our landlord would have a thing to say about that.
What now? Get some rabbits? A colleague of mine in the Netherlands liberated some from the lab where they had provided him with antibodies for his research, a question of a few painless blood lettings. The law requires that the animals subsequently be killed so that they cannot be used for further research, which is understandable. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. They kept his lawn short for years. But what would we do with rabbits when we are away? Trying to get the neighbourhood kids to look after them would be useless (see delinquents). Besides who says they wouldn’t be nicked and sold for meat, if they do not end up as a stray dog’s dinner first? No not rabbits. And the lawn would not even provide a sheep’s breakfast.
While I mull this over I feel frustration and anger building up in me. Being poor sucks. Having to worry about seventy quid after what both I and John used to earn makes me angry.
Sobriety suddenly seems a bad idea. I long for a bottle of strong cider to take the edge off the situation – but I’ll probably join the crowd of people I pass swaying, magnum bottle in hand, on the steps of the courthouse where their hassels with the police have landed them. Not a good idea. Although…seeing that I will have to cut the food budget, why not replace some of our meals with white cider? At about a quid for a litre of “White Lightning” it has to be among the cheapest sources of calories around. I suspect the stuff is subsidised as part of a government initiative to cull the unemployed poor.
Denni