I don’t usually use my blog to rant on. Well, sometimes I do, but what on earth’s the point of having a blog if you can’t rant on it occasionally? When I say I’m cross about parking permits, you’ll understand.
There is probably nothing in the world more annoying than parking permits, unless it’s parking tickets. Well, at the moment, I’m grappling with both. It’s so irritating! We bought a little car, in September, for my ridiculously long and boring school run. The idea was to make it a bit more cheerful for us all and, as the car is one of those irresistible little Fiat 500 bubbles, in baby blue, it works brilliantly.
Unfortunately, Lewisham Council is refusing to join in the fun. When they told us that the Parking Shop down near the Lewisham Centre was closing, I was actually sorry for the people that worked there. They used to get shouted at all day long, and had to live behind bullet-proof glass, surrounded by notices telling us not to attack them. It must have been stressful. And then the place closed. Probably the only thing worse than being a Parking Shop employee is being an unemployed one.
But, I must say, I am a lot less sympathetic now. I bought my permit, fair and square, the first day I brought the car home. It was rather like bringing a baby back from the hospital. Except, the next morning, the car had a parking ticket. Oh well, I thought, the new electronic, paper-free system, where you don’t display anything on the car but they have all the details on a clever computer, will soon kick in.
Three more tickets later, I am not so sure. Either Lewisham Council has failed to register my permit properly, or the wardens are ….. well, let’s just say not very nice and you can substitute the grisly swearwords of your choice for my italics.
I am sick of printing out copies of my payment receipt and putting them on the dashboard. I am sick of appealing against the tickets. I am sick of emailing Lewisham Council. I have heard nothing, not one word, back from them. And the wardens are keeping a low profile. Probably they are sneaking up on the car when they know I’m not looking, then sticking yet another blimmin ticket on the poor baby. Grrr grr grrr. Ok, it’s definitely a first world problem. But it’s making me cross. And a friend said they probably didn’t even sack the Parking Shop workers, they just redeployed them. I hope they’ve been stuck on vermin control.
