Week 15 - petty thieving in the Swiss bubble

The Tuesday C arrives home late for lunch utterly distraught.

His last morning lesson on a Tuesday is music, at the school next door, and he had taken his hat, gloves and scooter with him so he could come straight home for lunch rather than have to go back to his classroom to collect them. So, having retrieved his hat and gloves from the bin where one of his classmates had dumped them (I’ll be keeping a close eye on this) his scooter had been stolen. Hell hath no fury like me when one of my babies has been wronged, so after trying to mop him up and make him eat lunch, we head back to school to try to find it. Of course it’s complicated by the fact that the incident took place at the other school rather than the one that the boys are at. And the boys are reluctant to ask for the Hauswart (Caretaker).

I feel like banging my head on the wall again. No sign of the scooter anywhere. I’m bloody furious - this added to J’s watch never reappearing from a couple of weeks ago. I see C’s teacher, who, to be honest, doesn’t seem terribly bothered about it. I am now trying very hard to stay calm in front of everyone. She tells us we just have to ask the caretaker next door, and I ask her to tell the class that we want to know who has taken it or we will be reporting it to the police. Think she understands that bit despite my awful German.

The bell goes, and C runs off to his lesson. So we’re no further forward with this, to my complete irritation. J runs off to his class, to join them for a field trip that is happening today. 2 minutes later he runs back to me again : they’ve left without him, he was supposed to be there at 1.15pm not 1.25pm. Bloody hell. He was there at 1.15pm – helping me, and I had my mobile phone with me, why didn’t his teacher ring me on that ?

We get home as quickly as we can and I check the letter from school. His class are visiting the water treatment works at the next but one gemeinde. J’s teacher has left a message on the landline ansaphone asking where he is. She has also left her mobile number, but it doesn’t connect at all. OH has the car, and it’s too far, too cold and too icy to cycle. So I take a deep breath and phone for a taxi, managing to order one in German. Luckily I have enough cash to get us there, and we get J to the field trip 45 minutes late. His teacher is extremely kind though, and has obviously rung back to school in the meantime, as she knows all about the scooter by the time we catch up with them. She thanks me for making the effort to get J to the trip and is very sympathetic, telling me that the petty thieving is an increasing problem. Well, at least we know that from a teacher. But I am now stranded in the next but one gemeinde, with no transport and C arriving home in 45 minutes. And his scooter’s been nicked. Marvellous.

I walk to the train station (narrowly missing a bus that would have taken me there) and get the connecting bus back to our village. I finally get home 5 minutes before C, who arrives back home a lot more cheerful, but there’s no sign of the scooter. What a fantastically constructive use of an afternoon, in the busiest, most stressful month of the year. Grrrrr.

Later that evening OH pops next door to ask our neighbours for advice on what to do. Obviously it’s an annoying situation, but there’s no point going over the top and we don’t want to be labelled the histrionic auslanders, even if that’s the truth… Apparently the next door school to the boys' school does have quite a problem with petty thieving: scooters, designer trainers etc. OK. But that doesn’t get ours back, and we can’t decide if we should report it to the police – is that only going to increase our insurance premiums ?

The bottle of Gordons is no longer winking at me, it’s actively beckoning.