Our friends who live in the Ville have been telling people what happened to us and we have been receiving supporting messages from the ones that we know well. So that has put a smile on our faces 
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Did you notify your Insurers??
Hi Stella. Whilst at the gendarmerie yesterday he took our insurance policy number and placed it into their system. I will ring Britline Normandy on Monday to see if we need to make a claim directly with Pacifica. Phill bought the iPad from amazon.fr back in 2022, so we were able to print out he invoice for the actual cost of the purchase
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What a rotten thing to happen - and like other posters I’m deeply suspicious…
There is a ‘wonderful’ (!!) Chinese curse - ‘May you live in interesting times’; do hope your interesting times will soon pass, and in a few months time you’ll feel much happier and relieved your ‘interesting times’ have finished - and life becomes boring, and uneventful !! Best wishes.
(Having experienced a burglary my first instinct was to burn stuff, and move home………..it’s not a nice feeling - but at least you’ve already made this decision).
So sorry to hear about this @scrawford500 - I have no practical advice to add to the above, but having been burgled myself three times (in different places) I can sympathise with the feeling of violation when someone has been in your home, even if they didn’t steal too much of value.
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Just pondering about your plight… Something extra that may enhance your night time security for the next couple of months until the sale - Wireless motion sensor lights
https://www.amazon.fr/-/en/Security-Daylight-Floodlight-Waterproof-Adjustable/dp/B0F8QVHTK2
There may be cheaper alternatives but not with so powerful wide beam.
Install well above 2mts to prevent tampering.
Hi Susannah.
We have this one set up on the side terrace to see the front door and the front gravel area:
And these are inside the house (one in the hallway pointing at the front door and one in the back covered patio area):
Cheers - Steve
Hello. I would advise you to track the letter and make sure it is delivered promptly by complaining to La Poste if it isn’t. I had an instance whereby my letter stayed in France for over 3 weeks before being sent to UK. It may of course be different with internal mail. Good luck.
Jolly good. Keep them turned on full time.
And make sure the outdoor cams are too high up to be tampered with from the ground.
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We have a QR code on the receipt that we can activate on our phones and track the letters progress through the postal system
Phew. Sit tight. Won’t do any harm to keep cameras on though. Do you need any quietly repositioned or moved?. I like the idea of making sure all neighbours know.
Btw do you by any chance have a noisy yappy dog? Would be the ideal deterrent right now!
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Hi Karen. I have set the outside camera to be on high sensitive alert all the time from now on. We will set the inside cameras when we go into town and have the alarms active as well, along with the speakers on so I can yell rude words to them 
No, no dogs here. Looking after Phill is a full time affair!
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We are still confused how they managed to open the window? I will upload a few pics and if any of you wise peeps can provide an answer that would be great
Looks like damage to the frame and cill plastic. Probably really forced hard with a tool. Still think its a frightening tactic against you though. Hang in there and if you must go out together, put Alexa or similar on with music or talking going.
Looks like classic crow bar marks, so they came prepared unless you have one in a shed or garage that they accessed.
If you have tools outdoors that could be used, make sure they’re secure or take inside.
Shiba’s idea is good and you could always leave a light on or on a timer at night.
I’m sure you’ve thought of everything and hopefully this is just a one off, try not to let them get to you whoever they are.
All tools are locked away in the garage. We leave nothing out for anyone to use. I mean thay could have picked up one of the loose paving slabs and tossed it through the window. Thankfully, they did not.
We have a night light that we have on so we don’t trip up if one needs a toilet stop.
Cheers - Steve
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They used a jemmy to lift the windows locking bar out of the bottom housing and pushed the window forward.
Hi Wozza. Yeah, had a read of a couple of sites this morning. It is the most common way to gain entry to a house. You would think that window makers would make it a lot more difficult if is a commonly known way of entry into a house! We have closed the shutters of the rooms we don’t use and will lock all internal doors when we go out from now on; as well as activate the internal security cameras
I was always told not to lock inside doors as once someone is inside they can just kick in doors and do more damage.
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That happened to me. I had the top flat in a converted hose in Battersea. They used something as simple as a credit card to get past the yale lock on the outer door, then kicked down the doors of the 3 flats inside. I came home to find the door frame off the wall.
No one outside would have reacted to the sound of banging - there were always properties being renovated.