I rose earlier than usual, showered, had breakfast, dressed in loose fitting clothing, made my sandwiches and put them in the fridge and got ready to travel to Basildon Hospital for the long awaited shoulder class. I had allowed way too much time for the non-existent traffic, so we arrived very early. That's OK, I like the time to wander round and get used to the geography.
The shoulder class is supposed to help by getting people together with similar conditions so that they can support each other. I can see the benefit of that if there are likely to be some disturbing problems to go through, but for physiotherapy I'm sceptical. Still we will see how it goes, after all there's nothing else! So I waited outside, and the woman in charged asked me who I was, and went away. About 10 minutes later she came back and apologised - this is the frozen shoulder class, I should be in the trauma shoulder class, held on Tuesdays.
I suppose its a simple mistake, nevertheless it is very annoying, for me, and for Jo, who had also got up early to take me there.
Tomorrow I will have to go on my own, as Jo cannot make the times.
We got back in time to see just what a difference the yellow lines have made, both to us and to the residents on the other side of the barrier. The estate was almost car free, while we could see the cars parked on the other side of the barrier. At the top of our road at 9:05 there was just the one car - one too many according to the regulations. So was there a parking ticket on it - no more chance that someone would have resprayed and valeted it.
I think this is just a piece of NIMBYism. It has pushed the problem somewhere else. Instead of trying to solve it Essex County Council have just made life more difficult for a lot of people. The powers exist to enforce sensible parking. There could easily be a drop off area provided in front of the school. I expect there are other ideas.
It's the same with the commuters and shoppers. Provide sufficient parking at reasonable rates and most people will use it.
Instead we have rule and insufficient enforcement. People will learn that its not enforced, and park there, then the traffic wardens will be sent to issue tickets - its not cost effective to catch just one!
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