"IN MY WAY!" AGAIN

It’s not just in matters of photography where people get “In My Way!” as the saying goes, but in all sorts of other areas of life. This can, of course, become irritating from time-to-time, but, whilst I am likely as not to chunner about it to you lot, I am less than inclined in life to  have any moments of confrontation and instead I shall either internalise such things or rage and rant about them at a safe distance.

After all, falling out with those who live closest to you is not the best way to go about getting yourself a peaceful and relaxed existence, is it?

And it seems that it’s not just me, as a note written in bold handwriting in thick black marker pen which I saw sitting upon my neighbour’s dashboard recently proved.

Perhaps I need to explain the geography of the situation before I go any further. I live in a battered Victorian terraced house in the back of beyond. At the front of the house is a paved pathway which runs the full length of the row of houses and separates us from our front gardens but which provides access to all of the houses in the row. At the end of this path is a flight of stone steps down which I have been known to plummet on icy mornings which leads down to the main road that passes the front of the houses and which is where I nowadays have to park my car, if there are any spaces left when I get home. Often there are far too many cars for the number of houses involved and so they are regularly “In My Way!”

The back of the row of houses is accessed by a narrow cobbled ramp which leads down from the road that passes along the far end of our back gardens. The ramp finishes just about level with the back of my house so that mine, and all of the houses to the left of it have no space to park at the back. At the bottom of the ramp, a narrow lane passes along the rest of the row to an open area at the far end of the terrace, at which  there is a largish communal area for general parking and turning round purposes.

The lane is just about wide enough for people to park one car at the back of their own house and still allow other cars to get by alongside them, reach the end of the row, and turn around as required.

This usually means that, even if there are no spaces available to park at the back of your own house, you can at least unload your shopping, head off to the end, turn around and chance your arm back down on the main road.

Or at least you used to.

There was once a tacit agreement that the houses without space at the back of their own houses would be able to park in the communal area, and that those with space at the back of their own houses would park there.

This of course was in the days when most homes only had one car to drive.

Nowadays, this is no longer the case and, because some houses have several, they tend to use the “first come, first served” policy of grabbing a parking spot and hanging on to it for grim death.

Fair enough. That’s the law of the jungle, matey.

So be it.

But in recent months, the laws of basic common sense seem to have been chucked out of the window too. More often than not, even though there are no spaces left, one or two of them have just taken to leaving their cars anywhere in that space and, presumably, trusting to blind luck that no-one else will need to go anywhere before they do.

Again, good luck to them. I long ago relinquished any notions that I might have had in getting the chance to park there almost as soon as it became clear that I was going to be going out to work again instead of working from home.

But the annoying thing is, as my neighbour’s note (remember that?) seems to prove, that this laissez faire approach to parking has the consequence that, even if you just want to unload a bit of shopping or, say, something more bulky from IKEA, it is now almost impossible to go to the end of the row, turn around and get out again.

Her note apologised for leaving her car in everyone’s way but explained that she sometimes found it very difficult to turn her car around so, if anyone did wish to get past, they would need to knock on her door and ask.

I wonder how that went down...?

The thing is that it really shouldn’t be a difficult problem to solve. All it really needs is a bit of give and take and a smattering of common sense. However, we don’t seem to live in that kind of culture, do we boys and girls…?

Anyway, if I ever get a chance to talk to any of my neighbours in the near future (and, let’s be honest, who does these days?), I’ll let you know if there are any developments.