Parking Ticket

Got home last night at midnight. Got up at 6am, left the house at 7am, got home at 6.30pm to find I have a parking ticket.

I live in a road where you have to park in a bay and have a residents' permit. This is to stop nasty commuters (like me) parking in my road (like I do). Nasty commuters don't park in the road.

Parking attendants who work for a private company sub contracted by the council check the road every day.

My car has not moved since Sunday night and so has been checked three times already this week. Today the sticky wallet (supplied by said company to whom I have to pay £20 per annum,) fell off the windscreen landing face down on the dash board. Just like toast, but no buttery, jammy residue.

The price of my dastardly, neglectful behaviour? A £100 fine, reduced to £50 if I pay in 14 days.

Let's just remind ourselves why we have the scheme? To stop non residents parking in the road. Or, is it to make money for a private company? Because most cars fined belong to residents who forget to move their car into a bay before 9am etc. Got home late, no spaces, park on a yellow line, maybe outside your home, have a lie in....£50. For they check every day except Sunday and that includes Bank Holidays.

There must be a better way.

I shall contest it, but I'm not hopeful. Technically, I am guilty of 'failure to clearly display a valid permit.' Shame on me.

Nothing compared to what will have happened to some people today, I know, but something that I could do without.

End of moan.

In other news, I went to Mass at Notre Dame de France in Leicester Square on Tuesday night and had to fight my way through the crowds greeting Nicole Kidman et al who were going to the premiere of the Philip Pullman film. Didn't see any celebs cos the throngs were too throngy and I was running late. Seemed vaguely funny at the time.