Sunday, September 04, 2011

Being a Mother, and Cars

I have spent the morning cooking things and putting them into little plastic boxes for Offsprog Two to take back to college with her. They will probably still be on the table when I get back but they will be perfectly useful in my fridge if so.

Almost a month ago I sent Barnet Council a cheque for a parking permit (the price of which understandably is sending residents bonkers, a rise for £40 to £100 for a year, so we subsidise those residents lucky enough to have a garage or a driveway, i.e. the rich ones).
In doing this I was following an option on their reminder; but no permit has arrived, and although I have put a notice in my car window explaining the situation, I now have earned two parking tickets, which I have to appeal. Because this is so stressful I have resorted to parking on a country road fifteen minutes walk away, which is... stressful. Last time they did this, it took three months to get the permit, and God know how many parking tickets to appeal.
They want everyone to pay online and print out their own permit; but I don't trust them, and if I printed out my own permit I know that one foggy day it will slide off my windscreen, 'not be on display', and I will get a parking ticket (£70 fine last time this happened at the University of the East with a faulty windscreen sticker).
Our council leader is the horrible Brian Coleman, who hates everyone and everything and regularly appears on local TV shows in his capacity of London Council member, snarling and spitting, and in the local paper, spewing vitriol. He simply does not care one iota about the residents of the council he presides over, which is a horrible feeling in a time of recession.
In my head, I rebirth him as a Traffic Warden and send him on patrol in an aggressive district of London, populated by visiting gangsters, compelled to ticket every car, because every car is illegally parked.
O for such a thing to come to pass!

2 comments:

Monty said...

How can one find-out about your current Gigs etc. When there are'nt any listed!

Wilky of St Albans said...

Do you have a Residents Association? If you do get them onto it. Better still contact your local Councillor and bend his/her ear about it. Their job is to represent you. Be a nuisance