The windows at the back of my bungalow face onto my back yard, which is inaccessible to me as I have no back door, but the [huge] yard can be accessed from the fields at the back.

A while back my neighbour's bungalow was broken into while she was away for the weekend, by people who had come onto the Moshav via one of the tractor paths. The broke in through a rear window and turned the place upside down looking for money and gold, but did not find anything so left the way they came.

She came back on the Sunday and as soon as she told me about it I phoned my "do everything and do it well" guy - he came round and measured up my rear and side windows, and two days later turned up with ornamental bars which he fitted to all three rear windows plus the two side ones.

The only windows I now have without bars are the front one in my bedroom and the one in my salon. Which also faces onto the front.

Those two windows are the only way I could get out in an emergency, or emergency services can get in to me. As my front door opens outwards, that could not even be kicked in.

Do I feel locked in? No. Do I feel safe? Yes. I have not closed a window since the end of last winter, and the front [unbarred] window in my bedroom has not been closed for a few years now.

Little One would bark if she heard anything she thought was wrong, but she had a little bark. Pereg is not big but has a big dog's bark. Little One was probably a bit selfish in that as long as she was fed, went out when she wanted, she was happy. And oh how I miss that little girl. Her photo is still the wallpaper on my computer and I do not think I could ever change it.

Pereg is different. Pereg is Pereg. And I guess that is all there is to say.

Lesson learned, perhaps?

Probably not, though

Vicki - the number of times I have let myself into my neighbour's home on a weekend while she is away at one brother or another, checking that her windows are shut...

...but she will not have bars fitted at the back windows "because they cost money".

And a break-in does not?

My bungalow is rented and she is officially now my landlady since her father died, but in fact the whole family are my landlord/s. But as her father z"l always said, this might be his house but it is my home, and I have a hand-written letter from him which he wrote out and gave me about a year before he died, which states that this bungalow is mine for life from life, stating that nobody can ever increase my rent or tell me I have to leave. The family have acknowledged and accepted that but then they have "adopted" me into the family as one of them.

And because this is my home I have done and will continue to to do, everything possible to make it a safe, comfortable, and happy home in which both Pereg and I live.

My home is safe and secure. And it is just that. My home.

My two Rotties would definitely bark - and they're loud, the best deterrant and does get people "thinking" about whether they want to continue walking up the drive, but the tiniest of JRTs that I have, would definitely do the damage - crikey he's fast, in and out in the blink of an eye. Leaves my two big boys looking bemused and somewhat sheepish.

Rotties are slow.........

Could you beat one in a race ...

My current two would bark & do more if they came in I'm sure, but my Anni who I lost in 2007 not only let the ambulance men in when I fell in the kitchen, she then jumped over me on the floor to show them where her treat tub was.

Tee Hee GSD Sue