This has been one of those weekends that can be filed under the oh-so-frequently-used “the good, the bad and the ugly” label.
Starting with the ugly. We decided to go out for late lunch on Saturday afternoon, to a place in Greenwich that Natasha had targeted for a while. The meal was quite nice, the four of us – girls included – had a pretty good time. But when we returned back to our car parked around the corner, we found the passenger-side window smashed in and the glove compartment rummaged through, clearly in search of our portable GPS. My own stupidity is entirely at fault: Natasha always reminds me to remove the cradle from the windshield when we park the car on the street, but this time, I dropped her and the kids off at the restaurant door before driving around in search of a parking spot; when I finally found one, I absent-mindedly took the GPS out of the cradle and put it in my pocket, but I left the cradle in its place; some effing miscreant clearly could not pass up a chance to check whether I was so imbecilic as to leave the actual unit inside.
Upon getting back home, I immediately called my insurance, they immediately put me through to the glass and windshield service, who very promptly arranged for a repairman to come to the house and fit a temporary Plexiglass in place of the broken window. I had to wait up until 1:15am for him to arrive, but still, it was done quite expediently. The window replacement will also occur in my driveway, tomorrow; I already got a phone call from the service to arrange for time. That is chalked up as “good”. I’ve never been in this situation before, so I am not familiar with how this is handled in the States, but I am certainly impressed by the assistance I got here.
What it will do to my car insurance premium remains to be seen.
We followed through with our plans to go to the central London to meet with friends on Sunday, even though our own instincts suggested that a weekend that started badly probably will not be much improved before it is over. The weather quickly turned from nice to seriously bad while we were on the train to the city. The driving rain abated by the time we reached our friends’ place, the skies cleared, and we figured that we did not want to stay indoors. Unfortunately, the temperatures dropped by several degrees in that fairly short span, and even though we did not spend too much time outside, we were dressed lightly enough to get pretty cold pretty fast. Great company and a reasonably good meal at an Italian restaurant helped quite a bit, but the return trip home put in the last word in leaving us leaning towards miserable.
To top it all, I recently pulled the Achilles tendon in my left foot while literally sitting in my office chair. I can’t figure out how not to put any pressure on it as I go about my daily activities, so I keep re-injuring it while doing such mundane things as tying my shoelaces. Looks like I’m going to have to see a doctor about it.
Sorry to hear your car got broken into, Ilya; I’ve found there are few things as infuriating and emasculating, especially when it’s somehow your own fault that the car was targeted. (I actually left my car unlocked in a parking lot once. I still kick myself for that one.)
I’ve never had a window broken out so it’s not an equal comparison, but on the occasion when my convertible top got slashed, I had to take the car to an insurance adjuster’s office for his appraisal (which required me to take time off from work), and then to an upholstery shop for his estimate, which I then had to relay to the adjuster… it was hugely inconvenient, and in the end I’m not terribly happy with the replacement top for reasons that would take too long to go into. Everyone I dealt with was very nice and helpful, but the running around was all on my part, so I’d say you definitely were treated better in your case. For whatever that’s worth.
I suppose with windows, the replacement must be quite straight-forward, and appraisals are not really relevant, unless something else is damaged as well. That does not diminish how amazed I am at the efficiency with which it was all handled.