Rather predictably, fixing the break-in yesterday morning took far longer than I’d hoped. I was on to the insurance as soon as the phone lines opened, and the bored sounding woman on the other end told me the earliest they could ever hope to get the car fixed was Friday lunchtime. Over two days away. Apparently replacement windows for Ford Fiestas are in short supply. The way she was talking you’d think they were as rare as honest insurance claims advisors.

Fortunately I’d spent the previous half hour doing my research, and had read online that you’re not legally obliged to use their recommended fixer. So, when she demanded my credit card details for the excess, I refused and told her I would go somewhere else, where they’d be able to fix it today.

Needless to say, she promised they’d call me back in an hour. And you know what? An hour later they did and, miraculously, someone had found a stack of Ford Fiesta windows in a garage right here in Chelmsford. Conveniently enough, it was the very same garage they specified as their preferred outlet for repairs. Who’d have guessed?

They’ve gone down some considerable way in my estimations.

Still, the people at the garage were very nice. They did all the necessary umming and ahhing and sympathising and sucking of breath through teeth as I told them why it was broken and they promised to turn it around in an hour, which they did. In fact they went further than that, as they even cleared out all the scabs of broken glass I’d not been able to get at with my under-endowed Hoover nozzle. And while they were cracking on with that I went for a walk along the woody paths around Chelmer Village and found a World War Two pill-box hidden among the trees, in surprisingly good condition.

It was lightly graffitied, of course, but the edges were sharp, the door and window corners were well appointed, and the whole thing looked like it was nearer 20 years old than 60. It’s pitiful, really: I’ve owned a flat around here for the last eight years, yet it takes a break-in for me to find something so well hidden, so close to home.

That, I suppose, is one bright thing to come out of the whole affair.

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