We went to the park this afternoon, as I mentioned. After a couple of hours we headed back to the car, to discover that someone had been there before us. Someone who had smashed the passenger side window and taken the satnav.
Nothing else. They didn’t take the few coins that are in the central cup holder bit. Nor my driving shoes or Tim’s toolboxes, or even Small’s car seat. All they wanted was the satnav.
They didn’t care about the children who were distraught at glass all over the place, and how were we going to find our way home without the satnav?
They didn’t care about the 7 month pregnant woman who struggles to bend down and had to to get the glass out of the driver’s footwell.
They didn’t care about the glass that was littered all over the ground in a carpark used by many families with small children.
All they cared about was easy money. They probably don’t think that it costs us anything, because we have insurance. But insurance has an excess and that’s not insignificant. Did they think about stranding someone on a Friday night, probably not.
Not everyone is like whoever did this though. As I was struggling to clear glass from the car and comfort upset children, two women with two children came back to their car, parked next to ours. One of the women said “I work with glass everyday. I know which bits will cut, can I help sort it out?”
I’m not stupid enough to say no to that kind of offer. She rang her husband to bring her a dustpan and brush, and her friend split their remaining food sources (white chocolate and strawberry muffins) between their children and mine. Her husband turned up very quickly, and she sorted out the window, the footwells and the passenger seat area, and he recommended that I drive home by the old road, and then helped me work out which one that was.
I don’t know what I’ve have done without them – all I had was a newspaper, no gloves, no dustpan and brush. It hadn’t occurred to me that glass would fly around the car if I drove too fast (I don’t think I was thinking terribly straight tbh) – it could have been utterly disastrous.
So thank you, Danielle Hopkinson, stained glass artist. Thank you to your husband, and to your friend, whose name I didn’t even think to ask. You restored some faith in humanity, sadly battered by the little so and sos that broke the window in the first place.
(And no, Danielle didn’t give me her full name or web address, but I’m guessing there aren’t that many stained glass artists called Danielle in this area with strong welsh accents 🙂 )
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