The cutting down of trees in the car park of the swimming
pool means that I have had to resurrect my bike. Or at least take it out from its partial
hibernation.
Destroying
twenty trees was obviously not enough for the heartless people in the leisure
centre. No, they want to efface the
evidence of their destruction and have closed the car park for the next
month. The leisure centre is in a
residential area with lots of on-road parking.
Unfortunately next to the leisure centre is a school. And that changes everything.
Children go
to schools. A very good thing too, it
keeps them off the streets when we retired people can wander about without the
screams and general awfulness of the youngest generations spoiling our well
deserved time away from work. But
probably the worst thing about children and schools? Parents.
In the
general run of things I have nothing against parents, after all my entire
existence is thanks to them, but my parents allowed me to catch a bus to
school. They did not see the need to
take me to the school gates, drop me off and then wait around imagining me
making my way through the yard towards my form room. While being themselves double or triple
parked, on a pavement or on the zebra crossing, across an entrance, at an
angle, on a corner or any damn where they pleased with little or no
consideration for any other non-parent-of-their-child whatsoever.
So, now,
added to the insanity of parents dropping off their kids, residents parking their
cars, visitors needing a parking space we will have people going to the leisure
centre, finding the car park closed and then trying to park within a maximum of
ten paces away from the door.
It is going
to be chaos. And nasty chaos as well!
Having given
this some thought, I imagine that one of the more unbearable aspects of this
month-long torture is going to be car drivers stopping in the middle of the
road trying to spot a non-existent parking space and effectively blocking the
road for all other road users.
Luckily, in this country, we are
blessed with some of the most tolerant road users in Europe who never mind
waiting and who show no impatience at any road user impeding their
progress! So that’s all right then.
As if!
This morning I had to park three
streets away from the centre and half way down the street as well. Things can only get worse, and I do not
intend to emulate the Flying Dutchman endlessly roaming the area searching for
a parking space! The bike is the
answer. Possibly.
It is well over a year since I’ve
ridden the thing and I have had to hack the dust off it. Toni has oiled the bits that need oiling and
I have attempted to make the dynamo work.
Not that I have any intention of riding the thing in the dark, you
understand, but I do like to think that I could if I wanted to.
It will be interesting to see how
I adapt to this new regime.
