I had to go shopping. First of all I spent a mortgage on printer ink. Why is printer ink so expensive? – I’m now refilling all our cartridges but for the Photosmart we currently haven’t had a spare set. That’s now rectified and refilling will start immediately! I did manage a rather good package in Staples for under £40 for all 6 inks!

Onwards to Parkgate Retail World. A place I can only say I “tolerate”. It causes traffic hell, takes shoppers out of Rotherham, and actually isn’t that cheap… but it is home to Boots and I needed stuff from Boots. Upon entering Retail World I drove my little van up a parking line and saw a space… until a Peugeot 206 convertible driver had different ideas. She had her space, but she decided to reverse out straight into my path… but then stopped when she saw me. Rather than do the sensible thing and pull back into her space she sat in the middle of the lane blocking it expecting me to reverse back up into the queue of traffic building up behind me. “Sod this” I thought and reversed into the space opposite her anyway (small van… manouverable!) with a little farting around, but I got in. She STILL didn’t move!

As soon as I pulled into the space, she pulled back into hers… and I saw the scenario from a mile off – she was going to “have a go” at me. She got out of her car and stood opposite my van staring at the van… obviously she couldn’t see me. She had hair that could only be described as a bright yellow Crystaltips with a home perm and bad home colouring job. Her face was suck-a-lemon sour… and the Playboy bunnies on the back of the car gave me a good indication of her general level of intelligence…

Then… I unfolded myself out of my little van… yes… unfolded. It is rather small… all virtually 6’1″ of me… clad in leather trousers and long black leather coat, complete with black shirt and peroxide white mohican…

Have you ever seen someone scurry off with their face looking at the floor? – no? – well she did… very quickly. I like being scary 🙂

Finally… Barbers Avenue – thank you RMBC at least you can do something right. This junction has been annoying me for a while because it’s too narrow for 2 lanes of traffic so some inconsiderate people think it’s acceptable to drive up the footpath. Today two bollards have appeared on the footpath adjacent to the road thus preventing these kerb crawlers. I don’t like footpath drivers, nor do I like people who park so far on the footpath that pedestrians have to walk on the road to pass their vehicle. I generally find that OVER is preferable to ROUND in these instances… (have you ever seen footprints over the roof of a car?).