I received a call from West Midlands police on Saturday, the day after the theft. They told me that the suspect had admitted his guilt in interview, and was being held in police custody over the weekend, before being taken to court on the Monday morning. He had also asked that a message be passed on to me - he was very sorry for what he had done, and wanted to apologise for any distress he’d caused me. They couldn’t reveal whether he had any prior criminal record when I asked, but I wasn’t surprised when they told me they couldn’t say. My assumption was that as he was being kept in custody all weekend rather than being bailed or let off with a caution, he had a prior record.

This morning, I rang Birmingham Magistrates Court to ask what had happened at yesterday’s session. They told me the suspect had been given a 12 month community order and is required to do 200 hours of paperwork / community service. I’m very happy with the outcome.

I know the thief’s name, but I’m not going to announce it, even though it’s what he deserves. If the offender or anyone he knows reads this, you know what he did. He’s a thieving tosser and scum-sucking maggot - and that’s putting it politely - who committed a crime and has been suitably punished for it.

For my 34th birthday yesterday, there weren’t any big plans. The idea was generally to go down to visit my parents, get some gifts, do a bit of shopping, and then go out to Cineworld Birmingham in the evening with Dad to see District 9.

Everything went fine until we got to the cinema. Chris decided to come with us, but as he was in his car, he got there first. When Dad and I got to the desk, with no sign of Chris, we decided to get our tickets without waiting. We were slightly late, as it was 1900, but I figured we would only miss some adverts. Getting to the counter, I took my (new) purse out (which contained £130 in cash), removed the Cineworld card, and laid the purse down on counter with my left hand over it. Asking for a ticket to see the 1850 performance of District 9, the ticket clerk told us the performance had actually started at 1840. Twenty minutes late would mean the performance had already started, and I didn’t want to miss the start of it. As Dad and I were going back and forth a bit, trying to decide whether to go and see a later performance rather than rush into the earlier one, my phone rang. As my Cineworld card was in my right hand, I answered the phone with my left hand, taking the hand off my purse. It was Chris, and as I didn’t want to hold up the queue, Dad and I moved away from the counter… and I completely forgot about my purse.

Chris said, “Look behind you.”
I looked behind me, no sign of him.
“No, up here,” he said, and we spotted him at the top of the escalator. “C’mon, the film is starting,” he said.
“No, it’s too late,” I said, “We’re gonna miss it. Come down here, we’re gonna see a later showing.”

He grumbled a bit but came downstairs, and talked us round into seeing the earlier showing. We rushed back to the desk to get tickets, but it was too late; as the film had started, the showing had dropped off the computers and the ticket guy couldn’t sell them to us. Chris argued that we could be given tickets to the later showing and just go into the earlier one. I told him to shut up, he had a Cineworld card too and it wasn’t going to cost him anything to change. He muttered about complaining, which I said he could do later he if really wanted to, and we got our tickets for the later screening and moved away. I went to put my card back in my purse, and realised it was missing. Cue panic. I started emptying out my pockets and bag, looking for the purse, with no luck. I scoured the floor, swearing “Oh god, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” and went back to the counter to ask the ticket guy if I’d left it there. No sign of it.

Next stop, the security guy. He got on the radio straight away, asking other members of security to check the toilets, and he checked the floor and the street and bins directly outside. Still no sign of it. I knew I’d had it when I went up to pay, as I’d taken the card out, so said it had to have been taken. He asked security to check the CCTV footage whilst I paced around some more. Couple of minutes later, he said that CCTV had been reviewed, and that I didn’t put anything down on the counter. He said he was going to show me the footage, and we were taken upstairs. Dad and I went into the security room whilst Chris waited outside, and sure enough, the footage showed that I didn’t leave anything on the counter. Only thing was, the security guys were looking at the footage of the second time we went to the counter. I explained we’d been up there twice, and asked them to rewind it to the first time. They did, and sure enough, it showed me walking up to the counter and putting the purse down next to the chip and PIN machine, faffing around for a while, then answering my phone and walking away, leaving it there.

Next up to the counter was a tall guy and a heavily pregnant blonde girl. He noticed the purse, flipped it over, looked straight at the security camera for a brief second, then swiped it and walked away. Oh, I was FURIOUS. So furious all I could do was swear loudly, “Fucking…!” Words failed me otherwise. The footage went on to show that the man and woman wandered over to the popcorn stand, then walked right into a film.

The security guys were stars. They were able to use the computers to determine what film the guy had bought tickets for, and therefore what screen he was in. They sat us down and got me a bottle of water. My mouth was SO dry, and I swigged it whilst pacing back and forth angrily, telling Dad what I wanted to do to the scum that had taken the purse. Security went into the screen looking for the guy, and on the first attempt, couldn’t find him. They called the police and checked again, and on the second attempt spotted him and removed him and the blonde girl from the screen. Apparently, he straight away said that he knew what they wanted, and handed over the purse. He said he had planned to hand the purse back in after the movie. One of the staff members brought it over to me, and asked me to check that everything was in there. Absolutely nothing was missing. I was so relieved. Unbelievably so.

Security said they had called the police, and whilst we were waiting around, they noticed that I was circling closer to the guy, and asked me to go and sit down in a separate area. Would I have done anything to him? No, I’m pretty sure not, with all the security guys there, and knowing it would be stupid and likely classed as assault. They wanted me away from there though, which was fair enough.

Two policemen turned up shortly afterwards, and one of them took a logbook statement from me, whilst the other handcuffed the guy. I could see him from where I was sitting, and watched him after the policeman took my statement. He never looked in my direction once. I asked the policeman what would happen, would the cinema prosecute the guy? He said that was up to me, as the guy hadn’t committed a crime against the cinema, he’d committed one against me. I said, “Hell yeah, I want this guy prosecuted, he stole my fucking purse!”

A bit later, transport turned up to take the guy to the station. A very tall sergeant came over to tell me that I would need to give a longer statement if I was prosecuting. Two female police offers turned up, and one of them took me into the CCTV office to take my statement, whilst the other took a statement from Security. I developed one hell of a headache - stress induced, no doubt! Signing off the statement, I asked the police officer what happened next. She said that depending on whether the guy had any prior record, he might be let off with just a caution, or it might go as far as Crown Prosecution (i.e. court). I was given a witness/victim information sheet with a crime reference number and contact details on, and that was it for me.

The cinema gave us updated tickets for District 9, which by that point was for the 2110 showing. Film was good, although headache persisted!

Back home at midnight, I told Mum the whole story. I think if I’d not got the purse back, she would have felt even more sick than me - no doubt, given that £120 of the money in the purse was what she’d given me for my birthday, and the purse was brand new, and one she’d also bought for me.

I got very, very lucky indeed. Lucky that the security guys were so good. Lucky that the CCTV system was so good. Lucky that the guy who took the purse didn’t just walk right out of the cinema with it, which is what a lot of people would have done. Not many people get that lucky. It was a great end to a very stressful evening, one that could have gone down in history as my worst birthday ever.

The author, Frank McCourt (no relation) has died of cancer. His obituary mentioned his book, Angela’s Ashes, a story of growing up in poverty in Limerick, Ireland, in the 1930s. It quoted an excerpt from it, which said: “Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood. Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

It reminded me of what my Dad said when the film came out. He was born in Limerick in 1949. His mother, my Nan, was born and lived in Limerick in the mid-1920s and 1930s. Dad had asked Nan if growing up in an Irish Catholic household in that time period was really as bad as it was made out to be in Angela’s Ashes. Nan said that, no, it was exaggerated. She too grew up in a poor household with many siblings, and whilst it was difficult, it wasn’t that terrible.

Nan related a story of an incident when she was a child. Her father, who, like many Irish labourers, liked his drink, would on occasion hide money from her mother, so that he could use it at a later date for alcohol. He assumed that his wife wouldn’t notice, but wives can be sharp like that. This of course frustrated her no end, but he was the breadwinner of the family. Then one day whilst he was out at work, she found his stash of money, which was a not-insubstantial amount. She immediately took it and used it to buy sensible things - food and clothing. When her husband got home, he of course found his stash missing. I’m sure he noticed the food and clothing, but because he’d deliberately hidden it, there was no way he could say anything to his wife. I can just imagine my great-grandmother’s satisfaction at her husband’s inability to do anything about it. I got the impression the men were tough, and the women even tougher in those days.

My youngest sister, Jude, got married on Saturday to her fiancé Liam. I think she looked gorgeous.
 


 
The wedding service was at St Chad’s in Hopwas, a small but beautiful little church in a village just outside of Tamworth. Yes, I did shed a tear or two. Thankfully, I was sat next to Mum, who was worse than me and had come armed with a ready supply of tissues.

Dad came up on Sunday, and we went looking for Dorrie. Unfortunately, it was too late. We found her lying under some bushes. Although there wasn’t a mark on her, we think she was probably hit by a car, and managed to get away from the road before dying.

We took her up to the pet crematorium, and I took off her collar and tag. I’ll get her ashes tomorrow.

Born July 2006. Died February 2008. She may have had a bad start in life until I rescued her at 6 weeks old, but I think she was happy with me - I certainly received enough ‘gifts’!

Love you, chicken.

Thursday, and our last full day in New York. It’s surprising really how quickly the time seems to have gone.

We had to be up early this morning to get to central Manhattan well before 9am if we wanted any chance of getting a good vantage point for seeing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We’d read in our guidebook that the best seats were all taken by as early as 7am, and whilst we weren’t quite tough enough to be up and about in time for that, I did nudge Chris out of bed in time for us to get a subway train at 7.15ish. We reached Times Square for 8am, and it was already bustling, although we did get to very near the front of the barriers. We asked a police officer or two when we could expect to see the parade pass by, and when he told us it would be at least 9.15am, we decided to abandon our good position and go and sit down in a nearby McDonalds until a bit nearer the time. At just after 9am we pushed our way through the crowds, and whilst we didn’t get quite as good a space as earlier, we still had a great view of the larger floats and balloons. The first of them paraded past at about 9.30am, and just kept going. There were a load of stars on some of the floats - Dolly Parton, the band Good Charlotte, the cast of the film Hairspray, and several others who I didn’t recognise and only found out about when I read the news reports online later. We didn’t stick around till the very end of the parade - by around 11am our feet and legs were killing us, so we pushed back through the teeming crowd - a near impossible task - and headed downtown on the subway to see if we could find any open stores. There was a Christmas market in Union Square, and a Virgin Megastore that we disappeared into for a while. Other than that, very few places other than some cafes and newsagent type stores were open. Given that there wasn’t much opportunity for us to frivolously spend money or engage in sightseeing, we headed back to Brooklyn and decided to take it easy for the afternoon.

We went out at around 5pm for a Thanksgiving dinner. Perry’s, the diner around the corner that served us a giant breakfast back on our first day, was doing a fixed price Thanksgiving menu - $18.95 for a three course meal. I can’t think of many places (if any) in England who’d do a 3-course turkey dinner for that amount! We had a bread basket on our table, then got chicken noodle soup to start, although not the kind we’re used to. This had large pieces of spiral pasta in it, and proper pieces of chicken. Nice, mind. The main course was unusual. We were brought out a platter with peas and mushrooms on (together), a baked potato wrapped in foil for Chris, a sweet potato in foil for me (the top of the potato came off with the foil), and finally two plates with turkey breast piled high over stuffing. It looked like the same amount of turkey each that Mum would carve off to feed our family of eight at Christmas! They obviously don’t believe in doing things by halves here. The turkey was topped with a yellow sauce that had Chris poking at it dubiously. It turned out to be gravy, but I’ve never seen yellow gravy in my life. The stuffing wasn’t UK-traditional chestnut or sage and onion. It turned out to have a hundred and one ingredients. On my plate alone, I found apple, cashews, pineapple, raisins, and cranberries. More of a fruit sauce than a stuffing, really! There was far too much food for either of us to finish. We only made it so far before giving up. We were then brought desserts of vanilla cheesecake (me) and chocolate chocolate chip layer cake (Chris). And no - neither of us could finish. We staggered back around the corner to the house, and avoiding any kind of movement for at least half an hour!

Tomorrow is well known in the US for being Black Friday. All the post-Thanksgiving sales start, and people have been known to camp outside stores on Thanksgiving itself. In fact, outside a branch of Circuit City in Union Square, we saw a small line of people in camping chairs waiting outside the doors - and this was only at 1pm or so. The sale isn’t due to start until 7am tomorrow - there must be some fantastic bargains in there for that kind of devotion!

We’re not completely sure whether or not we should brave Manhattan tomorrow morning. We have to be at the airport for 3pm, but there’s still the opportunity for us to do some shopping (i.e. spend what money we have left) if we feel crazy enough. For now, some bag packing is in order.

After a late night last night at the comedy club, we were out late this morning, but planned to pack in as much as possible, with the first stop being the up to that point unseen Statue of Liberty. We figured that as it was the day before Thanksgiving, the queues wouldn’t be bad. How wrong we were! When we arrived down at Battery Park, the queue for tickets stretched out and curved back on itself for what looked like half a mile. On top of that, there was a further queue once tickets were bought to actually get on the Liberty Island ferry. Given it was later in the day, we decided we didn’t want to spend ages queueing, so instead just took photos from the harbour. Bit of a hazy day, but better things to do than spend several hours in queues.

We left Battery Park to head up the road to the World Financial Center. Chris wanted to see Ground Zero - not something I wanted to see myself - I find it hard to get to grips with the fact that a place where 3000+ people died, and what is nothing more than a construction site currently, has become a tourist attraction. I find it in very bad taste. We skirted around the site, and continued up the hill to the other parts of the Financial District, passing close to, but not directly by, Wall Street.

After getting something to eat, we took a wrong turning on Fulton, and found ourselves on Pier 16 at South Street Seaport, overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and several old clipper ships. It was still hazy, but a nice wrong turn to make, nevertheless!

When we finally found our way back on track and got to a subway station, we rode back uptown to find the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink. Chris had mentioned that there was a statue of Prometheus that overlooked the ice rink, and that the Christmas tree should be up. The plans for going to the Top of the Rock were shelved because of the haziness - visibility wouldn’t be good enough to make it worthwhile. We did get slightly confused in the Rockefeller Center when we couldn’t find the way out of the building to the ice rink, but finally made it. The Christmas tree is up, but hasn’t been decorated yet save for the star on top of it. Unfortunately, we’re going to miss the lighting of it, which doesn’t take place until next week.

We decided that the hours of walking around central Manhattan were taking a real toll on our poor abused feet - every time we sat down for any appreciable length of time and stood up again, we felt like our joints were seizing up. To save our discomfort (and wussiness) we headed back home and got a takeaway from a local Thai place.

Tomorrow - Thanksgiving and the Macy’s Parade.

Unfortunately, the heavy morning rain scuppered our plans once again. Chris still isn’t feeling 100% either, and wanted to take things a bit easier. Instead of major sightseeing (Statue of Liberty), we decided to get off the subway earlier than usual, and took a stroll around downtown Manhattan, through Chinatown, SoHo, Little Italy, NoLIta and NoHo. It was nice to see a side of New York other than the madness and shine of central Manhattan, with little shops and cafes, market stalls in Chinatown, NYU, and changing neighbourhoods. Some of them do blur into one a little - how do you tell the difference between SoHo and NoHo other than the dividing Houston Road? I don’t think I could!

We got onto the subway again at Union Square, and headed back into Central Manhattan for lunch, before taking advantage of the much diminished rain to go and have another wander around Central Park. All we saw last time was the south west corner on our way to the Natural History Museum, so there was still loads of it to see. We focused on the south east / central / eastern area, and walked up the Mall to Bethesda Fountain, rambled through the Ramble, skirted around the back of the Lake and found the Boathouse, and walked back via the Carousel (closed, unfortunately), to exit around 61st street on the eastern side.

I found out this morning that there was a Couchsurfing meetup planned for Wednesday, so we decided to change our plans and go to the Comedy Club today instead. It wasn’t until 9pm, so we had around six hours to kill. Finding ourselves in Times Square - which still dazzles me every time I see it - we stopped into the Coldstone Creamery for some gorgeous icecream, and nipped into the cinema for the second time in the week to watch 30 Days of Night. Vampire movie, many townspeople die, gets very silly indeed towards the end. Neatly killed some time, though. We went to find food downtown and got diverted into a huge Barnes and Noble bookstore for 45 minutes or so, and had just enough time to grab a quick McDonalds before we had to catch the subway back uptown to get to Broadway.

What we hadn’t been told when we bought the tickets for the show was that reservations should be made in advance - having the ticket isn’t enough, you then have to phone and book a seat. Luckily, we were only the second group on the reserves list, and we were ushered into the show a good 10 minutes before it started. The other caveat on the ticket that we had known about was the 2 drink minimum. Bar staff came around and took our orders, and brought the drinks to the tables, very welcomed as it saved gathering around the bar. There were six comedians, including the emcee, and the show lasted a good 2.5 hours. I’d never heard of any of them before, but all bar one were extremely funny. The one I didn’t find so funny still got laughs, but just wasn’t to my taste. Far and away the best was a comedian called Erik Rivera, who had us all in stitches with his race / ethnicity inspired monologues. Towards the end of the night, the bar staff brought round the bill for each group, and it was here that Chris and I discovered how they can sell discounted tickets. For a bottle of Bud Lite and three Cokes, the bill came to $29.07. This included $8 for the Bud (£4 for a bottle of American beer!!!), and $5 (£2.50) each for the Cokes. There was also an obligatory gratuity of just over $4 added to the bill, and tax of $2-ish. Chris and I were disgusted. Talking to a friend of his in San Jose online later, Chris discovered that comedy clubs do generally make their money through the price of drinks. Well… at least the comedy was great.

By the time we’d got back to 7th and 57th to catch a train, it was almost midnight. The journey back to Brooklyn was as long as ever. We finally got in at just after 1am - a long day!

Staying way out in the south of Brooklyn, it takes a while to get into central Manhattan. There’s a 20 minute walk down Avenue U to get to the subway, and then the Q train takes around 45 minutes to get into the city. There’s not much to do apart from people watch and wait for the brief glimpse of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline as we cross from Brooklyn into Manhattan.

As is the case with most mass transit, there’s always going to be the crazy person. You see them everywhere - even up in Sheffield on very rare occasions - but they’re most visible in the big cities. New York is right up there at the top of the list. There was a guy on the subway just the other day who stank of alcohol, and loudly complained to anyone in his proximity about the crass commercialisation of the holiday season. For a busy train, there was a large open space around him! Another guy was sitting with several empty seats around him. When someone tried to sit down across from him, he yelled something sharp and incoherent, and thumped the window with his fist. The other guy moved as if something had bit him. The crazy person started muttering to himself, rubbing at his face, taking off his glasses and putting them back on again over and over, picking his nose, and scratching his cheeks. Everyone studiously ignored him. Eventually, he started rustling through a plastic bag, finally pulling out a book. I had to suppress laughter when I saw the title: ‘The Lexicon of Stupidity’.
When me and Chris got up for our stop, the crazy guy stood up too and started pacing the floor of the train, back and forth. For a minute, we thought he was going to get off to, but apparently not. I often wonder what their stories are.

Chris and I were up late today. I think our jetlag is finally easing off, and we’re not waking at 6am or earlier. Instead, we woke late enough that we didn’t get out the door until around 11.30am. For the first time, it was raining. We decided that visiting the Top of the Rock wouldn’t be that good if visibility was reduced with the poor weather, so we settled on Times Square instead. We’d passed through it on the subway several times, but hadn’t actually gone above ground. When we did - well, it’s insane. You see it on tv and movies all the time, with the bright lights and the bustling people, and so on. Seeing it in person is amazing. Everything is aglow, all neon lights and noise and traffic and people. It’s kind of sensory overload, but it’s also so fantastic. Whilst we were wandering around gawping like the stereotypical tourist, we got stopped by two guys selling tickets to a comedy club show. As the Broadway theatre shows are closed because of a strike, there’s a lot of people avoiding Broadway, and people are selling discounted tickets to other things, like the comedy clubs. We paid $20 for 4 tickets to the Broadway Comedy Club show on Wednesday. Moving on to find something to eat, we found we were overwhelmed with choices. In the end, our feet hurting, we picked the next one we came across, which turned out to be Planet Hollywood. Good grief, it was loud in there. 360 degree screens advertised forthcoming movies, notable clips from films, music videos, and loads of other stuff. It was almost hard to hear one another. Thankfully, the food was decent.

Deciding that the weather kind of made things a bust, we decided to go to the cinema. Chris wanted to see Beowulf, and we found an AMC theatre just around the corner from Times Square. It wasn’t until we got in there that Chris realised the film was CGI-animated. He was a bit put out. The film was ok - nothing brilliant. However, the trailers were excellent - The Golden Compass, Cloverfield, and a forthcoming sci-fi film called Jumper that had me oohing and aahing excitably. I do like a good sci-fi film, so I’ll be looking out for that one eagerly.

After the movie, we made a beeline for the Rockefeller Center. I discovered that I’m actually getting to grips with the layout of the city now. The grid system takes a little bit of getting used to, but I’ve got my head round it, and I made it from Times Square (Eighth and 34th) to the Rockefeller Center (Sixth and 49th) without having to look at the guide book once. I was very pleased with myself - up until I had to check the guidebook to find the subway. Thing with the subway stops is that a stop called 42nd Street could mean Times Square (7th avenue) or Bryant Park (8th avenue), so you have to know exactly which line you need. Confusing! Thank god for the subway map in our Lonely Planet Guide. Chris bought himself a game at the Nintendo Store, and we headed back to the subway to catch a train back to Brooklyn, stopping briefly at a Subway’s to get some sandwiches. These long days are wearing!

Tomorrow, weather permitting - the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

We got a bit of a later start this morning, going out around 9.30am. It was Chris’s birthday, but he’s still not completely 100%, poor mite. Despite spending the last 72 hours with him, I haven’t yet - touch wood - caught whatever he’s got. As long as I can get through the majority of the week healthily, I won’t complain. In the meantime, he’s taking some Tylenol cough/cold syrup at 4 hour intervals.

We headed down Avenue U and had breakfast bagels at a Dunkin’ Donuts we’d passed on the way back last night before catching the Q train. The weather isn’t fantastic at the moment - slightly drizzly and cold enough that I bought a big furry hat on Fifth Avenue. After failing to find the Empire State Building yesterday, we finally tracked it down with the help of the Lonely Planet guide. The queues are a bit of a pain, but we got to the 86th floor and out onto the observatory into snow flurries (!) to admire the view. We could just about see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, which we’ll be visiting later in the week, but the view of the rest of Manhattan was just fine, including landmarks like the Chrysler Building and the Flatiron Building. Unfortunately, it was a bit too cold to stay up there for long.

We headed further down 5th Avenue to get a closer look at the Flatiron Building around 19th Street, then turned around again to walk back north. We’d arranged to stand in front of a webcam for Dad’s benefit at 3pm, and had to be at 5th and 45 by then - 26 blocks, or around 1.5 miles. Easy normally - not so fast in a city the size and population of New York! Cafe 28 offered a welcome break for lunch. The New York Public Library with its gorgeous architecture was great for me, and offered Chris a chance to write a postcard to a friend in California. Just a block away from 45th, Best Buy let us kill some time in the last half hour browsing DVDs and games - although we refrained from blowing our money! We were at the corner right as scheduled, and hung around for 10 minutes or so, letting Dad get the picture he wanted.

Cold from hanging around, we continued north up 5th Avenue, through the expensive and prestigious part of the road, passing by shops like Prada, Gucci, Saks, and Cartier. We went briefly into Saks, and felt woefully inadequate looking at Burberry and La Croix scarves with price tags of $250 upwards. They do have a very pretty Swarovski crystal Christmas star, though (which I felt too hesitant about taking a picture of, lest they looked down their noses at me at such gauche behaviour!). It would have been interesting to go into Cartier, but it seemed like a dress code or status sort of place, and in our furry hats we might have looked a bit out of place! Instead, we went into Gap and I came out with two much more reasonably priced tops.

We made it was far north as 56th Street and the Apple store and FAO Schwarz, and our feet were about ready to give out on us. Dinner and drinks were definitely called for, which meant trudging back to 49th Street and TGI Fridays - much welcomed food and relaxation.

We also stumbled upon Bryant Park on the way back to the subway station at 42nd Street - a pretty little place with an ice rink (which you wouldn’t catch me on, ever) and some markety stalls. Great views of the tops of the skyscrapers at night too.

Tomorrow’s plans - Rockefeller Plaza and Top of the Rock, the Chrysler Building, and Times Square.