Oh the dreaded parking fine. Today was an interesting one and a lesson learned, don’t go all guns blazing like the hot headed ginger I am, it doesn’t help the situation 🙄.

So today I was having a new boiler fitting replacing a 35 year old boiler with a sparkling new eco one it’s amazing! (Never thought I would get to that point in life getting excited over a new boiler😏) but anyway. I needed to move my car and put it across the road from me where there is a wide path that can fit a car on and still have plenty space to pass on the pavement, many of times parked there and once got a ticket 4 years ago but it got cancelled so from then on I park there when needs be.

I saw the gentleman in his yellow hi-viz coat, hat on and that thing they walk around with. As you do I quickly went out and said ” is there a problem parking here” to which he replied ” its illegal to park here” then I just got little tinny bit angry and started saying about parking there all the time in the last 4 years and a ticket years ago and so on. But me been me I didn’t let the poor man speak and I stormed off back to my house like a stroppy teenager😫. (While this was all going on the boiler man was outside watching all this happen) so I got in sat down took a few deep breaths and saw he was finishing up and put the ticket on the car. Then I went back out again🙄 and said same thing over then he finally gets a word in and says to me “well if you let me finish speaking!” 😳 (think he was getting very annoyed by me at this point so I stopped and I listened to him) “what I was going to say was, I’ll let you move your car as I can see your having work done I understand why you parked here but your not allowed, the double yellows on the road go all the way to the path regardless of the extra wide path” I then said “ok then” calmly and explained calmly again about the ticket years ago and so on he says to me “I’ll look into that as it shouldn’t of been cancelled I’m the supervisor of the wardens” so I just said “ok well I’m sorry for how I acted I’m hot head and ginger not a good combination” to then my surprise he laughed I then said “I’ll move my car now and put it in the car park” for then he said ” no no it’s ok I’ll give you a note and park on next street for free” as you can imagine I was a bit shocked but thankful so said thank you and then as I removed the ticket of my windscreen he said “I’ll take that and cancel it” 😮 at this point I was gobsmacked! All I could say was are you sure? And that I was sorry about how I was. As I got in the house the boiler man said “I’ve never known or seen it go from one extreme to the other with a traffic warden and then get away with the ticket” I just replied with and free parking on a pay and display road 😜.

So the moral of this story for me is I need to take a step back and think more calmly and clear nothing gets resolved by shouting about and been all aggressive, just talk listen to one another and sometimes can sort what ever it was out. I think I was extremely lucky in this situation as he had every right to give me the ticket and afterwards when you look back like now I wouldn’t of blamed him. But hey this is part of life 😊 smile forgive forget move on.