Park It

Hello Dear Readers!

I'm a very firm believer in karma, and put it this way: I get a lot of good parking spots.

Al Jourgensen

It has been a relatively quiet week since my last post. A week mostly spent completing some of the less than thrilling jobs that go along with buying ones own house.

Tuesday, for instance, saw a telephone appointment to agree a mortgage. This entailed a three way conversation between myself, my wife Tina, and a lovely and very thorough young lady (who nevertheless and rather worryingly, managed to spell my surname and my mother’s maiden name wrong), representing the bank who we have convinced to lend us money.

It was this innocuous seeming event that led to yesterday’s excitement.

Your Papers Please
You see, as part of the aforementioned process I needed to supply some documents as proof of my identity. This is because myself and my erstwhile other half still have separate bank accounts, even after almost four years of marital bliss, and it was Tina’s bank that had very kindly enabled us to make the house purchase. Thus it was that Saturday morning, found yours truly setting off on the short trip into the nearby town of Dewsbury, passport and driving license firmly secured in my top inside pocket and wallet respectively, ready for a face to face appointment.

I had been promised an email confirming the interview but due to the unfortunate misspelling of my surname (No, not that unfortunate, get your mind out of the gutter!) this had not arrived. I had remembered that the meeting was pretty much first thing though, so I set off to get there for nine am, safe in the knowledge that it was better to be early than late. Being the punctual person I’m not, I arrived in Dewsbury at approximately a quarter to the hour and looked for somewhere to park.

Time And Spaces
Now I was headed to a high street branch of the bank in question, so a car park was not something on offer. I therefore started searching for some on-street parking. It wasn’t too long before I found a space on a road just outside the town hall. This was possibly my first mistake. I parked up however with a nifty bit of reverse parallel parking and, after taking a moment to admire my display of spatial awareness, exited the vehicle and went to rescue my chair from the boot.

It was at this point that I spotted a ticket machine and realised I was in a space that required the purchase of said ticket. Checking my wallet I found it to be bereft of even half the change needed to satisfy the awaiting automaton. A quick rifle through my pockets turned up even less in the way of coinage, although I did find some chewing gum, so it wasn’t a total exercise in futility. It was money that was needed however, and needed quickly too. I weighed up my options and decided to head to the awaiting bank and use their cash machine, after all it could only take a couple of minutes. This was my second mistake.

I’m sure you can see where this is headed by now.

It was indeed with a sinking feeling that I returned to the car, after a speedy purchase of some body spray (in order to get some change, not because I smell), only to see an ominous flash of yellow poking out from under one wiper. Yup, a parking ticket!

 

That's The Ticket
Of course I was fuming. I mean, I could only have left the car for ten minutes! Although decidedly less than happy, there was little I could do, and I was about to man up,  take my medicine, and head for my assignation when, half way there, I spotted a form in a familiar uniform heading through a door.

I decided to follow and found myself in the reception area of Dewsbury Town Hall. A lovely lady behind reception informed me that the gentleman in question was indeed a parking enforcement officer and that he would soon be returning having just popped in to use the facilities. Now, in my journey to the cashpoint I had spotted that the bank didn’t actually open until half past nine so I knew that I had some time to spare. I therefore resolved to wait and have a word with the gentleman in question. My hopes were not high.

It is fair to say that the conversation that followed shattered all my preconceptions of the people who hand out those ever so costly tickets. The man in question was polite, sympathetic, and told me he would submit a report explaining the situation and highlight my status as a wheelchair user and how that may have meant I need a few more minutes to get to the cashy and back (it is uphill on the way back so… yeah) and that with one email from myself confirming this, I might (might) get out of the ticket.




via GIPHY

Singing The Blues

I’m sure some of you lovely readers will be aware of the Blue Badge scheme that enables disabled people to park in various places without penalty, allowing my fellow seated people and others who suffer from a range of disabilities more flexibility in accessing town centres, supermarkets and a whole host of places that otherwise can prove… Tricky. It’s a perk, if you like, or a slight compensation as I like to think of it, to the vagaries of disabled life.  No doubt, it will have occurred to you by now, dear readers, to wonder where my own badge was in all of this. Truth be known I don’t currently have one.

In my former employment I had a designated parking space that allowed me to park up for free in the middle of Leeds city centre. I never parked anywhere else apart from there and my own driveway, meaning that when my badge ran out I never bothered to renew it, partially due to my natural laziness and partially from some misplaced sense of pride. I think his particular adventure underlines that this now needs to be looked into again.

Before that though, I have an email to write.

Until next time…