I’ve just had a call for help from Nigel; have I got another story for the blog? He must think I have an interesting life, how wrong he is. Had a bit think and, this is what I came up with.

A few years ago, not long after I moved into the house I’m living in now, for whatever reason I was ‘home alone’ this particular night.

After a quiet night watching the TV, the time came for bed. I went through my usual OCD checks, are the doors locked? Is the television switched off? Is the heating off? You know, we all do it. Having convinced myself all was well and I wasn’t going to be robbed or burned, I took one last backward look at my living room, closed the door and went to bed.

At that time I was sleeping very well, so was sound asleep quicker than two shakes of a lamb’s tail. When I woke up it was still dark, five or six in the morning and in my not fully awake state, thought I could hear the TV downstairs, but that wasn’t possible because I had done my OCD checks and I knew I had switched it off. I listened hard and yes I could definitely hear voices from the box in the corner.

What should I do? Go back to sleep and hopefully it will have gone away when I wake up again? Go downstairs and see what was going on? Jump out of the bedroom window screaming?

I decided to go downstairs quietly, yes definitely the TV was on and also under the door I could see a crack of light, THE LIGHTS WERE ON AS WELL! Oh dear, (they weren’t the actual words I used), I’ve been robbed, what am I going to find when I go through the door? They might be still in the house.

Oh well, think I, in for a penny in for a pound. I’M GOING IN!!

I opened the door, all the lights were on and, to my absolute horror, there was a man asleep on my couch and worst of all he was wrapped up in my favourite sheepskin rug. I could only see the back side of him as he was facing the other way and was sound asleep.

I stood quietly for a minute or two thinking should I wake him or just let him sleep, he wasn’t hurting me and obviously had no intention of doing so. Anyway I decided to poke him and see what happened. A few gentle prods later and a voice said ‘It’s only me Vivien’, ‘Oh my God, it knows my name’, I jumped back saying ‘Who’s me?’ At this point he decided to identify himself, it was Big Issue (Jamie Bowes) and I think he was more scared than me. He didn’t know how he’d got there, the doors were locked but he said he would go and, HE WAS SORRY!

Panic over, I told him not to bother, just go back to sleep. I made him a cup of tea and went back to bed.

It turns out, that after I went to bed, Craig and friends came in (he had a key at that time) and Jamie went to sleep while they were still up, so they just left him hoping he would be gone before I got up.

Got a tale to tell? nigeldowson@yahoo.co.uk