OK, Upland newshounds... here's what happened: t'was us that got done. It's the first time in more than 12 years here... although another of our neighbours had an incident a couple of weeks back, spotting a would-be burglar in their side passage. Yes, extremely vigilant neighbour saw our burglar going through our stuff in our front room as we slept upstairs. He'd broken in at back of house and had come from the garden side... this was his escape route too, over our fence and up through the Friern gardens towards Underhill. Police were very fast and sealed off escape routes within minutes. They expressed some surprise to me that our gardens are "so open". Police dog lost scent in new mews off Friern though and he got away. Everything he nicked was stuffed into a red and black Swissgear backpack, which, if you happen to find it dumped in your bin or your garden, I'd love back -- along with any of the personal stuff that's of no use to anyone... including whatever remains of the contents of two wallets (one of them a red leather purse with gold clasp), a couple of notebooks; remainder of the valuables that were stolen will presumably be long gone. My neighbour's description of the thief was: male, about 25 years old, stocky build, South Asian complexion.
