A photo was used on the cover of a Church Directory recently, that had been taken back in 2007. (Not the one on here.) When my wife saw the photo she was immediately saddened as the photo was taken on the day before the early morning we were robbed in our home, while we slept.

I would often get up early in the mornings for one reason or another. The morning of the robbery I took care of the things we do when we first get up of a morning. Then I came into my study. I immediately noticed the cool air coming through the open window. I had committed the unfortunate non-action of leaving the window unlocked the night before. I had the distinct sense that whoever had been in the house had probably only just left before I came into the room, at around 4 am. I knew it was a young burglar because they had pulled up the inside blind on my window and not knowing how to activate the stopper to hold the blind up, tied the pulled down cord to the outside blind support.

I know they had bare feet as there was a very obvious footprint on a black stool I had in front of the window. (Forensics from the Police took three or four days to come and they were not interested in the footprint still evident on the stool even after all that time.) I had generously left a cash box on the kitchen counter OPEN with $AUD300 cash in it. That was an easy take. They also stole a precious sentimental handbag of my wife's from near the back door.

I had at the time, thought my gold watch a present from my wife on our 10th Anniversary had also been taken from the desk in the study.

We submitted our insurance claim which had to also include loss of my wife's set of car keys in her handbag. This meant the Insurance company had to also pay for the locks on our car to be changed. This was not done straight away and in those days the car was parked in a carport attached to the house and if the thief had half the mind and remembered the license plate number they could have scored a car as well from down at the shops one day.

The insurance company was very good to us. We did not get an equal monetary replacement for everything we claimed but the cost of new locks on the car and everything was covered.

Sometime later I was sitting at my desk talking to my computer technician who was here with me. I moved a sheet of paper and guess what! One Gold Watch sitting right there in front of me. Makes you all think how long did I leave bits of paper lying on my desk? So what to do? On one hand, I knew we never got back all we felt we were entitled to from the insurance company. So I am thinking..."Do I declare it?"
As a good Christian person, too, mind you. During the consideration of whether or not to declare, I got a call from a detective to tell me they had located a watch answering the description of my gold watch!

Bearing in mind the fact that my watch was sentimental as a gift from my wife, adding to which I knew I was obligated to repay the Insurance company the money they gave us for the "stolen" watch. So I declared to the detective, the watch had recently been recovered. I knew the Detective would report this to the Insurance company so I had to contact them and "fess up!" The next step was repaying the money they gave me for the missing watch. Having done all that, I then got a nice card in the mail from the Insurance company THANKING ME FOR MY HONESTY! You the reader and I now know just how close I was in NOT declaring the finding of my watch. I am glad I did though.

It took my wife especially, a long time to get over the invasion of our privacy because apart from everything else she slept on the side nearest our bedroom door which was just around from the study door the thief would have come and gone through to the kitchen area.

I still firmly believe even though everyone else says not true the young person who robbed us, was a neighbour or someone with whom we had dealings mowing our lawns or something, around that time - who had seen the cash box in the kitchen and so on. But we will never know.