The weather!
Can you believe the weather today? It’s the last day of April and it’s as bleak and miserable as a winters day. Getting up this morning was a non-starter (especially after the roller coaster week I’ve had), and it’s just gone from bad to worse. And to cap it all it’s a Bank Holiday weekend.
Seriously British weather – sort yourself out!
Tailgaters! How annoying are they?
There’s really nothing worse is there, when you’re trying to stick to the speed limit, some a_hole is driving so close they can almost see the grey roots on your head. You’d think that with the new speeding fines now in place they would actually appreciate you keeping them within the speed limits.
I have to admit my temper does reach boiling point when I glance in my rear view mirror and I can see the spinach caught in the driver behind me’s teeth. The Highway Code teaches drivers that they will need 23m to stop when driving at a speed of 30mph. I was always taught the ‘2 second rule’.
http://www.tips.drivingtestsuccess.com suggest “if you are being tailgated by someone, then gently ease off the gas and allow the space in front of you to increase”. Me, I slow right down to almost a standstill, and keep hitting the brakes. If you’re gonna annoy me, I’m gonna annoy you!
Roads that are closed without warning.
Isn’t it incredibly frustrating when you get to a road and it’s closed with a Diversion sign? I came across one of them tonight on my way home from bingo in Leigh Park. I don’t like going the back way home through Funtington and East Ashling because there aren’t any lights so I drive through Havant to get onto the A27.
Well tonight they’ve put a load of cones along the slip road, diverting cars back up the A27, but this time going West. Why? Where would that have taken you? So, annoyingly, I had to drive back into Havant and took the route to Emsworth – well I started too but then I realised that the slip road onto the A27 was open so I went that way. Why wasn’t the diversion aimed that way too?
Another thing that’s fricking annoying is that they don’t warn you the flipping road is closed early enough so you can take another route. Where there are other routes available there should be a board informing you that road is closed, directly where the alternative route is – I could’ve taken two other routes home if I’d been warned early enough!
After a rubbish evening at bingo this was the last thing I needed.
The awful state of our footpaths and pavements in Chichester.
Have you ever stopped to look at the pavements you are walking on? I have been forced to notice them recently, especially on my estate, while taking my beautiful grandson for walks in his buggy. The pavements are so patchy his poor little body is bounced around like a rubber ball.
Work has also begun on installing broadband, or something similar, on my estate. Unsightly lines, approximately a foot wide, snake their way along the footpaths now, leaving an unattractive patchwork across the whole of the estate. I understand technology needs to move on but why can’t the company installing the wires, or whatever it is they are doing, tarmac over the whole of the pavement, giving a decent finish to their work?
I heard from someone recently that apparently there was extra cash in the pot to fix roads and pavements. So some bright spark has decided that pavements leading to doctors’ surgeries should take priority. Sorry, why? How many people have actually gone into the surgery and said “I’ve just tripped up as I walked here due to the poor state of the pavement”? My point is, why doesn’t the person in charge of maintenance of footpaths and pavements actually take the time to walk the city, and I mean the whole city – I pay my Council Tax too – and do the work on the pavements that are in a bad way.
I talk about “my estate”, I mean ‘Arundel Park’ estate. I have been made aware of just how awful it is for any mum, grandmother etc. to push their baby/child along the uneven pavements around the estate – made worse by the snake of tarmac – but also, because there are so few dropped kerbs in which I can continue my travel without having to bounce the buggy down. It’s utterly ridiculous! Then, once I’m in the town, my grandson has to endure the rumble of the bricked paving that runs down every main street. My father-in-law tried getting my (now sadly late) mother-in-law out of the house by pushing her in a wheelchair down the town. She was so distressed by the bouncing that she cried, and asked to be taken home.
So if you are reading this and you can do something about it, please do. If you don’t believe me try pushing a wheelchair or buggy, or even sitting in a wheelchair yourself and see how bad it is. And take note of the pavements and lack of drop kerbs, while you’re doing it and fix them first.
Why, when you’ve just had a stupid accident in the car, does every other driver on the road seem determined to make you have another?
Thinking I’d done all the necessary checks I reversed the car out of a parking space straight into the side of a car that was suddenly directly behind me. Anyways, enough said about that. But since then I’ve had someone nearly drive into my boot cos he was looking at what the rest of the traffic were doing. A taxi suddenly aimed it’s car at my passenger door as I drove passed it. A driver drove straight onto a roundabout without looking as I was coming round in my lane. And worst of all, though not down to a poor driver, I and many other drivers, narrowly missed a shed frontage on the A7 while doing 65mph. This is to name but a few. I think I’ll stay in bed tomorrow.
Moanie Minnie 