Stoat - Where?

The Return Of The Pedal Bike

Well I finally did get my bike back. It turns out that I had cocked up the arrangements as I’d thought, as the police tried to deliver it on Wednesday, instead of just calling me. Thankfully though, I was able to arrange for them to come again tonight and at least that went ok. The officer turned up at about 10pm – they really do seem to have odd working hours here. Back home they’d just be gearing up for bashing a few heads together as the pubs kicked out. He took me down to collect the bike from the boot of his unmarked car, which I thought was a little odd. On reflection, I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t doing this in his time off…

He did have fun with me though. In order to reclaim my bike I had to fill in some paperwork. In Kanji. In triplicate. With no carbon paper. Some of the things I had to write I’d never seen before, so he helpfully wrote them out on a scrap piece of paper for me to copy. Why he didn’t just fill in the form himself is beyond me, other than he kept laughing and telling me it was good practice! Every mistake I made I had to cross out and fingerprint to prove that I’d made the alteration. By the end of it, I’d make no less than 15 prints and there seemed more of them than actual useful information. Apparently my hanko is not unique enough to allow retrieval of my bike, even though it was secure enough to open a bank account…

Anyway, the system works, I have my bike, it was delivered for free and as soon as I buy a new lock all will be well again. I even got to see a polaroid photo of the criminal who stole my bike, standing next to it, having just been arrested! If I ever see him again, I’ll…well, to be honest I probably won’t recognise him.