I think that it must be a Catalan rule of life that no self respecting inhabitant will park more than spitting distance from their destination.
I say this after parking a considerable distance from the doors of the hospital I visited this morning. Even if I had the assistance of the moon’s gravity to help with the trajectory of my expectoration I fear that the sputum would have fallen well short.
And what parking I passed as I eventually found my own space on open, dusty, uneven and (most importantly) unshaded ground! Any kerb is an open invitation to wheels: no matter how dangerous and obstructive the final parked car may be - if a wheel can touch a kerb it has the equivalent of ecclesiastical sanctuary.
It sometimes looks as if all the parked cars are engaged in a childish game where they have indemnity while at least one wheel is touching the kerb, but, at any moment when the policeman hides his eyes, they may all scatter and find other even more bizarre parking spaces!
I have told myself to be tolerant about the sort of parking which is an everyday horror in the part of Castelldefels in which I live because, after all, it is beside the sea in a seaside resort and too many people are chasing too few parking spaces so one must expect inconsiderate parking. But far too much of the parking goes beyond the inconsiderate and ventures into the territory of the downright dangerous.
The clearest and most glaring examples from the point of view of a British person concern zebra crossings. I suppose that I should point out that the British semi sacred nature of a zebra crossing is not shared by the Spanish. The absolute right of a person to cross is not guaranteed on the Spanish version.
Some zebra crossings here are controlled by traffic lights and you have to wait for the green light to cross. Some are semi controlled in the sense that, if the road traffic light is flashing amber you have to give priority to a pedestrian. Or not, as some drivers believe. The qualified nature of the zebra crossing in this country is an open invitation to disaster for the British visitor. British certainties should not encourage you to venture onto a zebra crossing with the same assurance that you might have in the home country. You might be right, but you could easily be left for dead by a naughty retreating motorist!
Parking near to, next to, or even on zebra crossings is also a problem. As most visitors to Castelldefels have to cross a main road to get to the beach the municipality has helpfully provided a rash of zebra crossing to help the sun seekers to their destination. This is a good thing but to our municipality the construction of a zebra crossing is no more than painting black and white strips on the road. There are no markings either side of the crossing to prohibit cars from parking.
You therefore have the situation that the first part of a crossing may effectively be blocked from the oncoming motorist’s view. This impediment does not seem to effect the pedestrians however, who walk out on the crossing as if the sides were protected with barriers of reinforced concrete.
I have often noted that the experience of the motorist rarely seems to inform the actions of the pedestrian and vice versa. It is almost as if there are two races, the motorist and the pedestrian, separated into distinct and mutually exclusive factions with mutual incomprehension. These two exclusive factions are bitterly antagonistic and are only united by their mutual (and very understandable) loathing of the cyclist!
I say this after parking a considerable distance from the doors of the hospital I visited this morning. Even if I had the assistance of the moon’s gravity to help with the trajectory of my expectoration I fear that the sputum would have fallen well short.
And what parking I passed as I eventually found my own space on open, dusty, uneven and (most importantly) unshaded ground! Any kerb is an open invitation to wheels: no matter how dangerous and obstructive the final parked car may be - if a wheel can touch a kerb it has the equivalent of ecclesiastical sanctuary.
It sometimes looks as if all the parked cars are engaged in a childish game where they have indemnity while at least one wheel is touching the kerb, but, at any moment when the policeman hides his eyes, they may all scatter and find other even more bizarre parking spaces!
I have told myself to be tolerant about the sort of parking which is an everyday horror in the part of Castelldefels in which I live because, after all, it is beside the sea in a seaside resort and too many people are chasing too few parking spaces so one must expect inconsiderate parking. But far too much of the parking goes beyond the inconsiderate and ventures into the territory of the downright dangerous.
The clearest and most glaring examples from the point of view of a British person concern zebra crossings. I suppose that I should point out that the British semi sacred nature of a zebra crossing is not shared by the Spanish. The absolute right of a person to cross is not guaranteed on the Spanish version.
Some zebra crossings here are controlled by traffic lights and you have to wait for the green light to cross. Some are semi controlled in the sense that, if the road traffic light is flashing amber you have to give priority to a pedestrian. Or not, as some drivers believe. The qualified nature of the zebra crossing in this country is an open invitation to disaster for the British visitor. British certainties should not encourage you to venture onto a zebra crossing with the same assurance that you might have in the home country. You might be right, but you could easily be left for dead by a naughty retreating motorist!
Parking near to, next to, or even on zebra crossings is also a problem. As most visitors to Castelldefels have to cross a main road to get to the beach the municipality has helpfully provided a rash of zebra crossing to help the sun seekers to their destination. This is a good thing but to our municipality the construction of a zebra crossing is no more than painting black and white strips on the road. There are no markings either side of the crossing to prohibit cars from parking.
You therefore have the situation that the first part of a crossing may effectively be blocked from the oncoming motorist’s view. This impediment does not seem to effect the pedestrians however, who walk out on the crossing as if the sides were protected with barriers of reinforced concrete.
I have often noted that the experience of the motorist rarely seems to inform the actions of the pedestrian and vice versa. It is almost as if there are two races, the motorist and the pedestrian, separated into distinct and mutually exclusive factions with mutual incomprehension. These two exclusive factions are bitterly antagonistic and are only united by their mutual (and very understandable) loathing of the cyclist!
The cyclist is the true pariah of the streets, roads and pavements. Those three areas are linked because they are all fair game for the cyclist who regards all space as his exclusive property; all road signs as merely street art and all traffic lights as mere flashing decorations.
The cyclist weaves intricate patterns of propulsion among cars and motorcycles which vary from the suicidal to the homicidal but are always informed with the key motivation of the dedicated cyclist – arrogant selfishness.
And don’t get me started on the ridiculous clothes they parade – it would be a vicious misnomer to say that a cyclist ‘wears’ his lurid garb. And I’m sure that there are specialist web sites where they could show off the intimate details of their bodies without the mobile fetishist exhibitionism that cycling is today.
The walk from my parking space to the hospital doors was not as long as the various digressions that I have written but long enough to tut! tut! my way pleasantly to steel myself for the difficulties in finding out where the patient I had come to see was located.
Apart from totally predictable confusion about the room number and discovering that the lifts were not for people I found the room relatively quickly (considering I was searching for a room which did not exist) and I was delighted to see that our Fallen Headteacher looked remarkably healthy for a woman with three screws in her thigh. The fact that she was not in plaster and was only going to be in hospital for a few days more was healthily encouraging. The flowers went down well as did the Sunday newspaper. The Observer.
What else do you expect me to give from a wishy-washy liberal with a small ‘l’ like me?
And I had paella for lunch.
Who can ask for more?
The walk from my parking space to the hospital doors was not as long as the various digressions that I have written but long enough to tut! tut! my way pleasantly to steel myself for the difficulties in finding out where the patient I had come to see was located.
Apart from totally predictable confusion about the room number and discovering that the lifts were not for people I found the room relatively quickly (considering I was searching for a room which did not exist) and I was delighted to see that our Fallen Headteacher looked remarkably healthy for a woman with three screws in her thigh. The fact that she was not in plaster and was only going to be in hospital for a few days more was healthily encouraging. The flowers went down well as did the Sunday newspaper. The Observer.
What else do you expect me to give from a wishy-washy liberal with a small ‘l’ like me?
And I had paella for lunch.
Who can ask for more?
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