Tears, tears, tears

Because Tiger shot off in the garden last night to collect her bike for cycling to the Co-op with daddy Dig, and found her bike, stolen.

Tiger's bike should be leaning against the wall under the shade of a sprawling fig tree. Along with the old purple-framed, spiky saddle, boneshaker of a bike me and Dig have wobbled about on all summer. Both were missing. The back gate was open.

I guess whoever took the bikes needed some late night transport. They would have been able to see the bikes through a gap in the gate caused by a missing wooden panel. Incidentally, that's the same wooden panel that Mr Pod upstairs has been routinely kicking in morningtimes, and I have been routinely hammering back on, nighttimes.

That's the neighbourhood for you.

Tiger is inconsolable. I have sticky-taped guilt-inducing messages on the back gate, we have trolled around the backstreets looking for the dumped remains of her precious bike, and we have visited the local police station to report it lost. Lost, rather than stolen, because I think there's more chance of it being found like that, and we don't need a crime reference number for the insurance. All our bikes come from freecycle or the local tip, and we just do them up with oil, inner tubes and washing up liquid, then mostly we can wobble down the road and back.

I've spent the evening on freecycle and Bumblebee and said we will do all we can, because tears alone don't bring things back.

But Tiger has gone to bed feeling the worst thing in the world is other people, and I raise my eyes to the sky and think we've just got off lightly in Smalltown.