The Mystery of the Appearing Shopping

[sally_maria]

Yesterday morning I opened my curtains just before 9am, to find that someone had left two full carrier bags tucked just inside our garden wall. We investigated, and found food from Waitrose, new saucepans and other kitchen equipment. It had rained the night before, and they weren't wet, but at least the food must have come from Cheltenham, not here.

Baffled, we left the bags out, assuming their owner would come back for them, but no sign so far, they are still there.

Someone could, I suppose, have got off the early bus, struggled bringing them up the hill and left them for later, but you'd think they would have been back for them within 24 hours...

Comments

[heliopausa]

I threw in my initial tuppenceworth about this intriguing mystery over on LJ, before I found my way here - but would you prefer that replies come here?

In terms of clues: what perishables were there?

[sally_maria]

Thank you - I've been cross-posting for a long time, but most of my still active RL friends are on LJ only, so I often wind up talking over there. I'm happy to receive comments in either place, but if someone is cross-posting I'll usually follow their DW journal.

I didn't actually go through all the bags, but it had some kind of packaged fish, some bacon and some cheese - which doesn't sound the ingredients for just one meal to me. Another comment Mum made was that all of it was pretty heavy, she wouldn't have wanted to carry it any great distance. But if it was dropped off in a car, why fly tip in our drive, when there's a perfectly good hedge on the other side of the road.

[sallymn]

One of Life's Little Mysteries....

[sally_maria]

Yes, indeed. Oh well, it brightened up an otherwise dull weekend. :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

That ... is very strange,

[sally_maria]

Yes, it is. At our old house we had somebody's stolen briefcase dumped behind our hedge once, but this is a small wall, where anyone who happens to look in the right direction can see it.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Could it be a mysterious benefactor, wanting to make sure that you all get a good meal? Or a guest expecting to arrive shortly, wanting to make sure that they get a good meal? ;-)

[sally_maria]

It did strike my mind that it might be somebody who was expecting to cook when they got where they were going, but there's a lot of pasta in there for one meal. It would keep paupers like us going for at least a week. ;-)

[chainmailmaiden]

My first thought was dumped stolen goods. Used to happen in our garden sometimes when we lived near Sainsbury's in Walthamstow. We also got wallets and handbags too.

[sally_maria]

Yes, that makes sense in that location, and our old house was on a main road. But here they would have had to bring the stuff the best part of 8 miles over the hill from Cheltenham.

I suppose it could have been left for someone else to pick up, and they didn't get to it for whatever reason, but there are plenty of places within a few yards of here it could have been left much less conspicuously (There's a field on the other side of the road.)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Ooh! An exciting mystery - and one which, if it happened in a work of fiction, would either lead to a thrilling adventure (probably involving ancient maps and smugglers) or something disturbing involving secret agents, mistaken identity, gangsters (albeit ones who shop at Waitrose), car chases, and a blood-soaked climax on the banks of a flooded Severn.

Some 35 years ago, your town was the headquarters of a daring detective duo called The Tremendous Two. (We They started out as spies, but couldn't find anything to spy on, so decided to branch out as detectives, only to realise that there was nothing to detect, either. The Tremendous Two would have loved this sort of mystery, and even if we they hadn't solved it, would have filled numerous pages with our their well-reasoned speculations. :-D

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Heh :-)

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[sally_maria]

Well, my neighbour has left for the weekend and apparently taken her dogs with her - perhaps it was a coded message to tell her where to fly to, now her cover has been broken. :-) I wonder what the hidden meaning of the pasta and the blackcurrant preserve is?

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

Does it look like it could have been an Ocado delivery? We have had things delivered to us when the delivery men have failed to find the correct address within the postcode and simply dumped stuff on us. One was left on the doorstep and the other was tucked behind a bush in the garden.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Have Ocado now merged with Yodel? :o

[sally_maria]

I don't think so in this case, as it looks like they've reused other carrier bags, with Waitrose ones inside. (As for these delivery drivers, you do wonder what's going through their heads sometimes. I swear, half the time they go to more work to avoid delivering the parcels than they would if they just got on with it.)

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Maybe they *planned* to collect it later, but then met a sticky end? Or maybe they were supposed to meet someone to give it to them but THEY didn't turn up (and perhaps met a sticky end)?

At what point does one report suspicious / random bags in one's garden, and the possibility of at least 2 people having met a sticky end, to the police? Technically, you find it, you hand it in, they investigate, and if it doesn't find its rightful owner you might get it back! Very useful that will be of course ;)

Or...put a Lost and Found sign up in your local post office saying how long you will keep it for for them (except the perishables which you have binned)?

It's be more fun to have an escapade a la Nancy Drew (or Tommy & Tuppence?), but I suspect the need to go to work on Monday morning might scupper that.

[sally_maria]

I hadn't thought of the Post Office, but that is not a bad idea. :-) The police are back over the hill in Cheltenham, but we were planning on ringing them after lunch.

I think I'll have to leave the escapades to the parents, who don't have paid employment to take up their time.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

How odd! Maybe it's a donation to a soup-kitchen, delivered to you instead of to some nearby neighbour* who is involved in it? (I'm thinking of the lots of pasta aspect.)

*or even someone in a street with a similar name?

[sally_maria]

It could be a donation for the food bank, which my parents are involved on the periphery of, though there would be better people to leave it with. Some of the other food doesn't tie up with it so well, but it would explain why no-one's come back for it.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Well don't forget to check back with the old Bill in 5 weeks time to ask about it ;-) would you like me to ask at work what the deadline is?

[sally_maria]

:-) Thank you, that would be a nice idea.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Are the bags still there...?

[sally_maria]

We gave them to the police yesterday afternoon, about four-ish, as nobody had shown any signs of wanting them. They didn't have any bright ideas about where it had come from either - they said they didn't come to this side of town very often, as we were usually pretty quiet and well-behaved. :-)

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Gosh, how odd. Have you heard anything more about it? As the Marquis says, it's worth checking back with the police once the appropriate interval has past, since then if you don't get the satisfaction of a solution to the mystery, at least you may benefit from some new pans.

[sally_maria]

No, nothing at all, it's still a complete mystery. One of those things man was not supposed to know. ;-)