Friday 12 April 2013

What Constitutes a Good Day?

I went to the gym today.  Apart from the fact that I managed a PB on the rowing machine there was nothing unusual in going to the gym.  However whilst I was on the walker looking out of a gym window (which overlooks the Napier Civic Theatre and its adjacent council car park) I watched the traffic warden check all the cars.  When she got to mine she looked and then marked a tyre.  That's not unusual but the fact that mine was the only tyre marked did make me wonder why and I decided that when I next saw a traffic warden I'd ask.   Here in the sticks there is not the animosity towards traffic wardens you find in some places.  They are, after all, here to make sure that we can all park as well as make sure we pay for the service.  

Digression: The only penalty ticket that I have ever had for parking was in the early 1980s.  I went to a meeting and parked on the road outside the meeting place as I always did.  When I came out I had a parking ticket and noticed that over the previous few days double yellow lines had been painted.  What?  When I got back to the office I asked one of my staff when the traffic order authorising that had been agreed.  A few hours later when I returned to my office there was a traffic order in the middle of my blotting pad (remember those?).  It was open.  It was open at the signature page.  The signature on the order was, you guessed it, mine.  I paid up!

Anyway when I returned to the car today after the gym I had a penalty notice on the windscreen.  What?!  Oh dear.  The ticket from the pay-and-display machine had gone from the dashboard.  That's one of the problems of an open-topped car tickets can blow away or get stolen.  But I wasn't a boy scout for nothing.  Actually I was never a boy scout but it's a handy sort of phrase.  I'm an Edwards and we are always prepared (as well as always being on time for appointments).  So I had photographed the ticket.  As it happens the ticket was in the footwell of the car so I could produce it.

So I popped into the Council Offices, smiled and and explained to the lady at the information desk that I had committed the offence in that I had not displayed the ticket but that I had paid and the ticket had blown onto the floor of the car.  "That's no problem" said the lady "I shall make the penalty notice disappear for you."  And so she did. 

This evening Wendy and Martin and friends from Napier who have stayed with me on Lewis came for dinner.  

You know what?  Life doesn't come much better than today.  Or am I just easily pleased?


17 comments:

  1. Yep, thankful Thursday! I'll have to remember the line that my window was down...just kidding.
    Glad everything worked out so well. :)

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    1. It's an open topped (soft top/convertible) car Lisa and the top was down.

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  2. I really wouldn't have believed that you took a picture of a parking ticket but it's just as well you did.
    It is also comforting to know there are kindred barm pots out there.

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    1. I've never pretended to be anything other than mildly eccentric Adrian but I can quite imagine people wandering off with a parking ticket so easily available. It also has the advantage that if I forget when the time is up I have an aide memoir.

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  3. You really ARE prepared for everything, Graham - taking a picture of my own parking ticket is certainly something I'd never think of (if I had a car, of course)! All I ever do is take pictures of my outfits, of the sky, of meals I prepare, and of the view from my kitchen window :-D

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    1. We Edwardses are a bit like that Meike ie prepared for anything and everything.

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  4. Here in Sicily it would have taken you months to get them to believe that the ticket had blown away...you must have heard of our Italian bureaucracy:)

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    1. Francesca I think the secret in this case was going in and admitting that I had technically offended but smiling nicely as I showed them that I had paid. OK I know it doesn't always work but I got the right person on the right day.

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  5. Thank goodness, you did not end up having to pay a fine...that's a good day.
    By the way, you have a trigger finger where that camera is concerned, taking photos of parking tickets has never ever crossed my mind....good for you.

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    1. Virginia I suspect that I am the only person either of us knows or will ever know who is so loopy as to photograph parking tickets.

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  6. A good story! When when nasty problems are easily solved , we can feel good.

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  7. You're easily pleased! :) Perhaps so am I because this was the first thing I read today and it gave me a smile to start the day. (PS - I particularly enjoyed the Digression... Too funny!)

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    1. Monica I am easily pleased as a rule these days.

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  8. I am absolutely astonished that you are so organised as to take photos of your parking tickets... You have set a new high-jump cross-bar thingy for me to aspire to!

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    1. Katherine it's just a question of being prepared for the sort of thing that actually happened. Everyone is laughing but I did save $40.

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    2. ...and gave everyone a good laugh as a bonus.

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