Broken Into.

Last Wednesday in the early hours of the morning, as I slept soundly next to Rich, my house was broken into. My mum came into my room at a quarter to seven and woke us up. Lily was barking a couple of gardens away. The back door was wide open and the table was littered with debris from our wallets and coat pockets. Cards were strewn, receipts lay dormant and the cash was, obviously, gone. My laptop was taken, in it’s case in my school bag. In the bag was a roll of undeveloped film of my newborn niece. And my house keys. I kicked a basket. Eoin punched a wall. We all paced around in frustration, anger and disbelief. We could not understand why this was happening again. Just under a month ago we were also broken into. Twice within four weeks? Crazy. The first time an iPad and a new digital camera were stolen. We weren't home and it didn't feel as much of a big deal. The sense of invasion of privacy wasn't as strong.

The locks have been changed, the windows and doors have new bolts and an alarm is going in this evening. We are safe and our replacement possessions will be safe now too.

I usually back up my work regularly. When I was writing my thesis I emailed chapters to myself, uploaded them to google drive and backed them up on an external hard drive. The night before we were broken into I contemplated leaving my laptop in college. Leaving valuables overnight in NCAD is not advised but I knew that I was not going to do any work once I got home and I would just be carrying it home to carry it in again. I thought better of it and packed my computer up in my bag to go home. I also ignored a little icon that popped up in the corner of my screen prior to shutting down that told me my last back up 21 days ago. That night I popped a roll of film from the hospital into my bag so I wouldn't forget to bring it to be developed the following day. Unfortunately whoever broke into our house, rifled through my things and took my bag, favourite film camera and computer complete with three precious weeks of work also took that little roll of film with them. It's probably in a bin somewhere now. I a month behind with my degree show project now. I hadn't realised just how much work is done in a month. It's all just so frustrating.

Thankfully having a newborn around at times like these really puts things into perspective. We are so lucky that no one woke up and heard these people in the house. I shudder to think what could have happened had we disturbed them. I am thankful that we are all ok, that most of what was taken can at some stage, in some way, be replaced. We don't have those photographs but we have the memories. A photo of newborn Lola is nothing compared to holding her, kissing her little face and smelling her beautiful freshness. Being an aunt for the first time makes up for pretty much anything.