I decided to drive into Gosport to have a chat with the nice lady in David Seymour about the logistics of my impending move from house ownership to flat rental I took my usual route which avoids all the traffic lights:
- Station Road
- Right into Brockhurst Road
- Right into Anns Hill Road
- Left into Carnarvon Road
- Right into Whitworrth Road becomes Gordon Road
- Left in Bury Road
- Left into Stoke Road becomes Walpole Street and
- Park at Morrisons.
and as I was driving slowly down Carnarvon Road because there were cars parked each side and there was only just room for two cars to pass in opposite directions, I noticed a taxi coming towards me that could be a bit of a challenge but I am a master of driving through and parking in small spaces so I drove on very slowly. As we passed both my wing mirrors struck the wing mirrors of the parked car on the left and the taxi on the right simultaneously. Wing mirrors are made for this purpose so I wasn’t overly concerned though I did realise that the space available must have been just a bit smaller than I had thought. The taxi driver stamped on his brakes and come running towards me saying:
“You shouldn’t be allowed on the road!”
Thinking to myself that we were both driving towards each other and must therefore both be at fault I simply said:
“Why are you getting so angry about a wing mirror?”
He looked very fiercely at me and said:
“Stay there while I check to see if my wing mirror is broken!”
I dutifully parked the car in a nearby space and got out of the car to await his return thinking that he can hardly be about to make a claim for potentially £20 worth of damage with both our insurance excesses probably being £200 or more and that the inevitable assumption must be that any insurance company would apportion the blame equally to both parties. I saw him check is wing mirror, jump into his taxi and drive off so I assumed he must have been embarrassed to find that there was no damage whatsoever to his wing mirror which could have been presumed from the lack of damage to mine but there you go! Lol
I went on to my meeting at David Seymour and then on to Morrisons to park. Actually I needed some ibuprofen for my knees which were suffering a little from my 3 hours of salsa dancing last night at Caliente so for once I was a bona fide customer. Sensitive knees is something I inherited from the half marathons that I used to train for & run after I reached 40 years of age and decided that it would be a good idea to have positive reason to keep up the non-smoking habit that I had recently taken up. I was inspired by the trailing runners of the 1985 Gosport Half Marathon who passed by my house in Titchfield Road at the time to join Stubbington Runners to do this and actually ran the Portsmouth half marathon the following year in 1:45 but more about that on another occasion. I was just saying that all that pounding on the hard roads had taken their toll on my knees. I don’t eat bread any more because gluten brings on painful arthritis to my knees but even without gluten in my diet they do hurt a bit after a heavy night salsa dancing and last night was heavy and heavenly at the same time! 😉
Anyway – I walked through town because I wanted some limescale remover from one of the pound or pound-stretcher shops. The Saturday market was on and as I walked past the stall where I bought some thick winter socks I stopped to ask a question about the excessive fluff they still produce even after six months of wearing and washing. I bought them because I find them comfortable for wearing the over-size shoes I have to wear because of my wide feet. My shoe size is really a 9.5 but I often have to buy a size 11 to make them comfortable.
“Hello, I’m thinking of buying some more of these but is there anything I can do about the fluff?”
He held out a bag in one hand and I said: “No, I don’t want to buy them now – I was just asking about the fluff.”
He mumbled an answer which I didn’t quite catch and then said: “You asked the self same question before!” in a peremptory tone.
I replied with two words – can you guess what they were? I did smile benignly as I said them though. He just went quiet and the two customer in front of him about to be served smiled benignly too! 😉
I do love Gosport – it’s so . . . friendly . . .
