Blooming Outrage

We bought a flower cone from Habitat a few weeks ago. It's a hanging basket, but shaped liked a big metal ice cream cone. We planted some pansies in it and positioned the cone outside our front door. Remember, our house is a Victorian terrace, so it's right on the street. To deter the casual thief, we screwed the cone onto the wall. The pansies really brightened the street up.

Of course it was only a matter of time.

And last Friday, in the wee small hours, our cone was ripped from the wall by a couple of drunken fools and carried off into the night.

We were dismayed to discover the theft on Saturday morning. We'd half expected it to get pinched since putting it up, but the act of mindless vandalism still managed to upset. I had a wander up the road, away from the town centre -- thinking the drunks were walking home from the pub --in the vain hope of finding and reclaiming the cone.

Despite peering into every garden and over every fence, I could not locate it. I even put myself in their shoes, thinking if I'd had nicked it, what would I have done with it. Launching it from the old railway bridge was a strong contender, but only a pair of broken stolen bicycles lay in the nettlebeds below.

We resigned ourselves to having lost our little piece of street improvement and cursed those responsible all weekend.

On Sunday evening we had a walk into town. And what did we discover discarded against a fence? The cone, minus flowers, bent and buckled out of shape. It's a shame, but it won't be going up again outside the front door. Retirement in the back garden beckons for it.

The drunks must of been coming home from the rugby club...