CSI Lush Places

Everyone loves a good police drama.

And there's one going on right now in the village square outside my window. I'm so excited I've got camera shake and I daren't use the flash in case the spotlight turns on me.

At eleven thirty, my husband turns to me in bed and says: 'There's a police car outside.'

Ever the Miss Marple, I climb out of bed and peep through the curtains to see two young men in shorts sitting down in the road, propped up against Mr Grigg's car, with a third standing next to a police officer. There's drunken shouting and swearing, and young men's Westcountry belligerence and four policemen talking calmly and persistently until the men are asked to get up.

To think, with windows wide open, I nearly slept through all of this.

Then I hear the immortal lines that go something like 'you do not have to say anything...anything you do say may be given in evidence.'

Crucially, I miss what they are being arrested for. The three are handcuffed and one is ordered to the ground as he attempts to 'try something silly'.

Then a police van arrives and the young men's vehicle, a dark coloured Land Rover Discovery (I've watched enough Crimewatch to take a note of these things) is searched high and low with more police officers with high powered torches.

And then the police car and van drive off and the unmarked car lurks, with an alleged criminal in the back. Nothing to watch here, Maddie, you can get off your knees, naked behind the curtain and go back to bed.

And then there's a commotion as the empty Land Rover now has someone in it.

Another police car arrives (that's eight policeman we've had so far) and they tell the person inside GET OUT OF THE CAR!

I'm back at the curtain now, watching the drama unfold, my knees hurt and we're wondering how this one will pan out.  There's lots of to-ing and fro-ing, I can see Mrs Bancroft is peering out from her window across the street and I think, blimey, the B&B guests next door ought to being paying double for a front row seat.

The man in the car says he can't get out. The police say he can because he got in there. After much nagging, they finally smash the window (they smash the window) but the door still doesn't open. After about forty minutes, they manage to get him out  and he is arrested and put into a car.

Another car has just arrived, I think it's The Sweeney or possibly Sgt Catherine Cawood from Happy Valley which makes me think it's actually lucky these cider heads were not carrying guns. 

The unmarked car is still lurking.

There are holdalls put in the boots of police cars and, in a detail that touches me, a policeman gets a broom out and sweeps up the broken glass.

It's still going on and I'm tired but what a great thing to happen while I'm studying a Future Learn forensic psychology course about witness investigation.

To be honest, they didn't look like much of a criminal gang. They were all wearing shorts and sounded like Nick Frost in Hot Fuzz.

Any minute now, Mrs Bancroft is going to come out wearing fluffy slippers and a dressing gown and carrying a tray of hot cocoa while Champagne Charlie will be offering gin and tonics all round.

The cars all leave the scene, the entertainment comes to an end and a single policeman is left guarding the evidence before the tow truck arrives to take it away as the church clock strikes two.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x