Parking in a "disabled" space

is NOT the thing to do. Please, unless you have a permit to use one, do NOT do  it.

I don't care if you are "just dropping someone off" or "just dashing in to pick something up" or "answering a call" or "there was nowhere else" or any of the other excuses that people seem to think allow them to do this.

Middle Cat has a permit. After major back surgery, two knee replacements - one still causing major mobility issues, an ankle which has been "pinned" in more places than I care to think about, and more issues she needs it at the moment. If I happen to be out with Middle Cat then the permit is useful for both of us.

The Senior Cat had a permit. I have just returned the Senior Cat's permit. 

I would be eligible for a permit but have so far resisted because those spaces are at a premium and other people need them more than I do. 

And this is what makes me so angry when one of our "independent" candidates for the election on Saturday claims that she had every right to use one of those spaces because a volunteer was "just dropping off some t-shirts to another volunteer. It only took about forty seconds." I am sorry but I don't care what s/he/you were doing.  You do not use that space.

Yesterday the rear chain came off the tricycle yet again. I cannot get it back on unaided. Fortunately I was on the footpath but I might easily have been in the middle of the major road I was about to cross. I phoned Middle Cat because I was on my way to the doctor to get my flu vaccination. She could let them know and then come to help - the two of us managed to get it on between us the other day. Of course it was raining to add to my woes.

To make a much longer story short Middle Cat eventually called the Access Cab driver who transported the Senior Cat so many times. Would he take me and the trike to the bike shop if he was not busy?

Very fortunately he was at a shopping centre a short distance away and, after making sure his passenger was safely inside at a dentist appointment, he came to help. (The trike is now at the bike shop and, knowing it is my mobility device, they will deal with the problem as soon as they can today. ) 

We were lucky there was a parking space in the side street. The driver, L-G, was able to off-load my tricycle there and I could wheel it into the back of the shop. What is more we were parked in a legal space. L-G went off knowing Middle Cat would come and pick me up a little later. I had time to watch.

The rear parking area has parking for two medical services, a shoe shop and the bike shop. There is parking for people with permits. A van pulled in to make a delivery to the shoe shop - into a place which requires a permit. When he left about five minutes later another delivery van for a business across the side street pulled into the same space. It was still there when Middle Cat came to pick me up.

But what had happened in the mean time was the bike shop van had parked across the rear of the delivery van. The driver had done it quite deliberately.

"He can come in and ask me to move," the bike shop driver told me, "I've told the owners over there time and time again."

He will probably have to go on doing that. It's not making for good relations with a neighbouring business but I admire him for trying. I told him about the election candidate.

"Last person I would vote for," he told me. I hope a lot of other people feel the same way.