A Crumbly Day Out And a Grumpy Old Man-nerism

We went out with another couple of grumpy crumblies into the deepest depths of Derbyshire yesterday. There was much swearing done by at least three of us, the fourth one was a little more restrained in her use of bad language ... being a lady. We had a fairly grumpy start to the day just getting out of our parking space at home. Some complete [here goes] t**t sped up the street, stopped in the middle of the road in front of us and then took 5 minutes to unload stuff before parking his car right next to where he'd stopped - moron.

There were many more occasions to vent our spleens during the day, to***rs pulling out of side roads in front of us. I swear our car - bright green that it is - must be wearing a cloak of invisibility at times. Two wa***rs in a Mercedes each, overtook us in a 40mph zone, the second - flat cap wearing - to**pot being quite scary. There was a car coming from the opposite direction and grumpy had just put his foot down as we were by now just entering a 50mph zone. He was so close when he passed us that he practically took a layer of paint off our car, then he cut straight back in front of us - sh**heap!

Er, where was I before my mini-rant? ... oh yes, our day out ...

Now don't misunderstand me, we may have been in Derbyshire but we weren't walking in 'them thar hills', apart from anything else - mud, excess of fresh air, being idle - I can't be doing with the walkers uniform of rucksack, big boots, clipboard, compass and map, socks over the trousers almost up to the armpits and in some extreme cases, silly hats.

No, we did the more sedate version of enjoying Derbyshire by first visiting Chatsworth Garden Centre - I have heard that there's a big house nearby but my grumpy old man manages to avoid visiting it [and paying] by telling me that it's shut and that he's already been and 'there were nowt worth looking at'.

We then went for a light lunch at Calver - and if you think that the older generation has even a fleeting impression of what consists of a light meal, forget it - it mostly involved huge quantities of fried stuff, just right for furring up the old arteries. This was followed by us waddling [very full] our way around Peak Village for a spot of shopping.

After we'd dropped our friends off we went to visit my sister and brother in law - yes, I am getting around to my grumpy old man's most recent misdemeanour, just bear with me a bit - we stayed there a while catching up with family stuff, then made our way home.

Later on, we were watching Shameless - after completely failing to work out whodunnit in Midsomer Murders, although I did guess the correct body count [I did much better the night before in Silent Witness, yes I know I'm rambling but who cares] - when grumpy, quite out of the blue announced that my sister's hair suited her fastened up, I agreed with him, saying how I keep telling her it looks like a thatch with all the straightening she does to it [we have curly hair that she won't admit to] when I suddenly realised what he'd said.

Anyway, if you've been paying attention or indeed been bored enough to have read some of my previous posts then you'll know by now that my GOM never looks at me ... 'What do you mean her hair suits her? You never say owt about my hair!'
'Your hair looks ok.'
'Oh yeah, so what have I done with my hair?' He looked over at me before smugly announcing that I'd done a plait thing.
'So Sherlock, when did I do this French plait?'
'This morning' ...

I had in fact done it only ten minutes before, because like most women I can't just sit and watch the telly, I have to be doing something with my hands [some people munch chocolates or chew their finger nails at this point]. I'd left my puzzle book upstairs, ditto my mobile phone, I couldn't be bothered to do any work and when I glanced over at my laptop, it glowered malevolently back at me with a 'don't you dare interfere with my buttons' kind of way, so I fiddled with my hair instead - as you do.

I made a brief attempt at getting all huffy about his latest faux pas but couldn't really be bothered. Today of course, he has given me a thorough inspection, spinning me around to check on hairstyle and colour of clothes awaiting testing later on.

Not on his nelly! I'll wait a few days before I test him again, it's much more fun ...

Speed?!

Now I know that the speed limit in a built up area with the required street lighting is 30mph. But where does it say in the rule book that you must drive at this speed or fail your driving test? ... When the street in question has parked cars on one side and hoarding 2ft into the road on the other, making the actual width to get through no more than approximately 7ft.

This was the absurd claim made to my neighbour when she asked the toss pot - the one who had previously had speeding visitors that I'd shouted at the other day - to slow down. He also thinks that even though there's still plenty of room for turning, we shouldn't park in the turnaround at the top, presumably because he can't quite keep up to the 30mph required of him by law.

That's OK, we're obliging, we'll move our cars if we're upsetting him by parking in the turnaround, but there aren't many parking spaces to be had ... Especially as someone [him] is leaving 'notices' on cars telling drivers to 'park in front of their own house', because someone from up this way - who is without a parking space at the moment - was parked an inch into 'his' territory ...  I am led to believe that, ahem, when this person moved into the housing association house, he was told that there was street parking that went with the house - yeah right! I can't remember the last time we were able to park in front of our house [well I can, it was immediately before demolition] but we aren't complaining, it's something we're prepared to put up with.

But as I say, we're obliging, and if we're at all being a nuisance by parking our cars in the turnaround [for which we have permission and it's nothing to do with the council], to people who want to drive faster, then we'll have to arrange our parking exactly as it was before the turnaround was made - oh dear, that'll completely block it off for everybody, shame.

Oh, and even though the 5mph sign was only put up at the turnaround bit, the workmen assumed [never assume, there are always idiots] that as the road was so narrow, we'd all got enough common sense not to drive at speed on the rest of the street. Evidently they weren't expecting there to be new 'bolshy, I'll do what I like' twats for residents whizzing up and down.

Anyway, I wouldn't like to be in his shoes if he hurts one of the street's children [or cats] by his arrogant stupidity, and if he's still driving dangerously over the next few days then we'll probably have to get the police involved. Hmm yes, police - paperwork, maybe not. Oh well, we'll just have to hope that his tyres spontaneously deflate ...

Turnaraound Again

The men working on the Asda site are extremely helpful, when they asked the grumpy old man yesterday how things were with our turnaround, he told them about the speeding. Within half an hour they came and put a 5mph sign up. I'd rather have a strip of spikes in the road that I could operate with a lever in my front room, but that's just me.

I've just shouted ineffectually through the window at yet another complete moron [and stranger] - visiting one of the 'housing association' houses half way down the street - to slow down. I was actually in the back bedroom [where my computer lives] and he was driving so fast I could hear him coming up to turn around. Where do these twats come from?

Please have a care when driving up and down Bridge Street, don't forget the children are still used to relative safety up here with it having always been a dead end. Oh, and do get out of your car to shift the elderly black cat when he's sunbathing in the middle of the road, rather than expecting him to move ...

Turnaround

We were promised a turnaround at the top of Bridge Street as it is admittedly difficult to turn cars around - but not impossible [depending on size of car].

Well they've made us one and right now I wish they hadn't, we were all perfectly organized regards who was parking where at the top by how often the cars were used, who left earliest in the morning and the size of the car. This worked for us.

Of course there were those who didn't want to join in this scheme and spit their dummy out if someone parked by so much as an inch into 'their parking space' and so ended up parking in the middle of the road - Yes I know, you get them everywhere.

Now personally I don't care if folk come from three streets away to turn around at the top of the street, after all it's still a novelty yet. What I do object to is the speed in which they do it, they hurtle up, whizz round, then speed back down. As the children of the street have already adopted this extension as their play area [probably a bad idea] there is every likelihood that there will be near misses or worse.

A road sweeper had been mentioned to clean the turnaround when it was first done, it's not happened yet. As this is an old bit of land where the 'G R Turners' building stood, we're talking pretty filthy. Judging by the colour of the kids when they've finished playing up there this road-sweeper is becoming somewhat vital ...