A shark came into my goldfish bowl

When I first moved here, I wrote about living in a goldfish bowl - how our big-windowed back door opens directly onto a back alley which all the other neighbours use too. Oh, how positive and jovial I was about the communality of it all.

I hadn't thought about the flip side. Other people - anyone in fact - can also come down that back alley.

Last night, about 7pm, I jumped out of my skin when a face appeared through the darkness at the back door. I was both relieved and alarmed when I saw it was a police officer. She knocked at the door to tell to me there had been a burglary last night a few doors down about 12.30am. They'd broken in through the back via the back alley.

I want to go back to Witney, squeeked Lola, who was listening. I instantly felt the same. In Witney, we  actually left our back door open all time without any incidents, ever. Apart from the baby blackbirds who came into the house every bloody spring and shat everywhere.

I suddenly felt very vulnerable and alone. Jim was away for the night. And I was living in Crimeville.

Coincidentally, that very morning I had been chatting with the guy in the Buttie bar round the corner about crime in Lancaster. It's such a safe place, he told me, like so many other people here have told me. All we get is burglaries, really. We only get a murder about once every 18 months.....

Once every 18 months? That didn't sound like a 'safe place' to me. If we're comparing with the Murder Mile in London, maybe. If we're comparing with Witney, it sounded f*ckin scary! But it was all theoretical at that point.

Not now. Spent the evening googling anti-burglary measures and went to bed to lie awake listening for noises.

Update: 

Spoke to two neighbours the next day. They said there hadn't been a burglary in the street in the 20+ years they had lived here. But one said that as times are getting harder for people, burglaries are going to increase, and we are living in what is considered a wealthy neighbourhood. Also that student houses are always the most targeted because they generally have the most up-to-date and valuable gadgets.

Update #2:
It wasn't a burglary!!! The old woman who lives in the house doesn't have all her marbles and often reports seeing people in her house. Sad, but phew!!!!!!!!!!!