Deiknuo’s blog – the reflections of David Lewis

Hardly anything upsets the good people who use our premises as much as car parking. We have a great suite of rooms, and we are open as a church from about seven in the morning until ten at night. About 1000 people come through our doors each week – including nursery school, mums and tots, Jo Jingles, badminton clubs, bridge clubs, dance classes, and so much more. In addition, we have a coffee bar that’s open six mornings a week. So we are a busy place.

We have a reasonably large car park, but there are occasions when the capacity of the car park doesn’t match the capacity of the premises, and people struggle to get a parking place. The matter is made far worse by the fact that the local council, urged on by residents, put yellow lines on the roads close to the church, meaning that there is no parking allowed on the street between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon.

What annoys people most of all, though, is that it seems that to use our premises you have to be incapable of parking a car correctly. The car park is so often not used to capacity because people seem to find it impossible to park in the clearly marked spaces. Don’t they see the lines? Are they unable to park between the lines?

This morning was a case in question. On Saturday mornings our premises are used by a dance school. The place is packed, from 9.30 onwards for about three hours. Fortunately the road restrictions don’t apply at the weekends, so people can park in the road outside the church. I went up early this morning to collect a few things, before the dance lessons began. There were only three cars in the car park, but one of the dance school teachers had managed to park in the only place she could have parked to prevent anyone at all using our only disabled parking bay. I confess to thinking some very ungodly thoughts! She had twenty plus spaces to choose from, but decided not to use any of them. Why?

I know I’m supposed to show Christian love, but I’m so tempted to go and buy some wheelclamps for those who so blatantly misuse the car park facilities.

This is Mr Angry, signing off.