23 September (Part 1) - First customer hits Abbey Road
A
bad start to the day. I woke up, glanced at the clock which said 6:01; so got up
and went about the usual things at a leisurely pace intending to have a blog ready for 9 a.m.
When I was ready for the trip to the paper shop it was 8:50! Must remember to put my glasses on
when reading the bedside clock in future, it must have been 8:01; but I inadvertently did someone a favour.
As I went along Abbey Road right next to the
new Pay & Display machine a man was
calling out to a householder across the road standing in his doorway. “Can I
park here all day?” was the gist of the question and the reply approximated to “Dunno”.
So I explained that he had to pay £3.80 for two hours and pointed at the sign.
The driver didn’t understand it so I went into the subject in a bit more detail and he
then raked through his small change for £3.80. He never said a word about the exorbitant
price but with wife, two children and luggage in tow perhaps it was worth paying for the convenience of the nearby station.
I returned to the scene at 1 p.m. expecting him to have got a PCN by then
because his ticket receipt was not ideally placed, but despite being the only sucker
in the entire road willing to pay £3.80, all was well.
A little further along the road someone was less lucky. He'd parked where there are no yellow lines but there is a
‘Residents Only’ sign 50 yards away which he had no reason to be looking out for, there being no yellow lines. The stupid thing
is that if he had parked on the opposite side of the road which is identically marked he’d have been OK. Councils do like to
confuse people in order to line their pockets.