Eats

Cajun Chicken, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and olives drizzled with a little balsamic vinegar sat in a little bowl on my lap. A small toasted naan bread sat to my left wrapped up in kitchen roll awaiting my attention. It was to be a simple meal shared only by myself sat in the car yesterday at Jaynes Foreverbunny event in Bakewell, Derbyshire, the sun was shining and the birds singing. Nice.

I chose to sit in the car not wanting to display my less than skilful eating habits when using a small plastic bowl. You see I tend to get things down me or drop items of food mysteriously into odd places only to find them many days later, indeed only that morning I had found a small hardened pea in my left trouser pocket and couldn't for the life of me think where the pea had come from and how it had managed to secretively wriggle into its location so as you can imagine the last thing I wanted was an errant olive rolling away causing some kindly person to skid uncontrollably into the fudge stall. The worst, worst food you can give me is mini tomatoes that are whole, they really are the devils food to eat. One simple prang from my fork and you can guarantee they will send a festival of syrupy seed filled pulp in my direction and up my nose, I'm not even very good with ones cut in half and in quarters I find them too fiddly, there really is no winning with them at all.

Anyway, I sat in the car idly toying with an unexploded tomato, both passenger and driver windows down allowing a nice cool zephir to waft over me when on my left I noticed a blue car reversing haphazardly, it stopped level with my car, obviously ready to swing in to the disabled bay behind mine.

'Move over there!' Said the driver, half hanging out of his window. The driver, a gentleman of advancing years was yelling to his wife or partner who was sat in a motability scooter completely blocking the disabled bay he was trying to get in to.

'Move yer silly cow!' He said affectionately I like to think but the look on his face led me to believe otherwise.

The old lady looked around in bewilderment then as the penny dropped decided to move.

Now, let me clarify something here, I was in a normal parking bay, behind me was two disabled bays, slightly larger, both unoccupied and at 90 degrees to my car so really the unobstructed bay should have presented no problems whatsoever.

I certainly didn't expect her to do a one hundred and thirty two point turn and glide effortlessly into the back of my car. It was only a slight thud from the padded chair but how on earth she managed to do it in a good eighteen feet square area devoid of other obstacles is beyond me. A point that was noted by her partner.

'You silly cow, watch what your doing!' He offered as encouragement.

By now she had found the forward button and trundled away in a wide arc that bought her parallel with my car so effectively we were side by side only she was a little further back.

Mr Potty Mouth started to reverse, only he too wasn't very good at it and required a bay the size of a football pitch, something I realised as he hurtled back at an alarming rate only to stop short of smearing his partner, mobility scooter and a small dog up the side of my car. At the time I was eating a bit of chicken, I stopped, half of it hanging out of my mouth waiting for the bump. Fortunately it never came but I did notice several passersby look away in disgust at me as the bit of chicken dropped from my still open mouth, I must have looked a right hick. I read their thoughts 'OMG that's disgusting, quick look away children he's so common.'

By now he had moved forward a little and was shouting more instructions telling his partner on exactly where to move to as it was putting him off reversing, or as he put it 'Shift it, get right out of the way for goodness sake'

I chose to ignore the drama but I had started the engine, you know, just I case I had to shift quite rapidly. Gradually he lined up for his final move. Picking up the naan bread I watched with interest as he edged his way in barely a foot from my car still wondering why he was hugging this side of the wide space whe I noticed a head slowly moving towards my open passenger window. Not any head but his partners head, she had gracefully moved only to softly stop parallel with my passenger window so effectively she looked like she was sitting next to me.

'Looks nice' she said, pointing to my salad.

There are times that you just get put off things isn't there, this was one of them, I didn't want to carry on with an audience but here I was talking to the disembodied head of a random stranger that had just pranged my car with a mobility seat. What do you say?

'Yes it is' I politely replied whilst I curled up inside.

With car parked Mr Potty Mouth exited the car which seemed to excite my disembodied head.

'Don't call me a cow again!' She shouted, really,really loud, not at him but rather through my two open windows and across me so he heard it, because of course she couldn't shout over the car could she. The waft of garlic and Youth Dew perfume did nothing to help my appetite and filled the car with a sickly smell that clung to the very fabric of the car itself. Before I could slam the windows up she had trundled away weaving side to side and generally clipping anything and everything that moved.

See, even a quiet warm afternoon can suddenly become quite weird, for many years I considered a theory that I have some kind of built in magnet that attracts this type of thing but now I just take it for granted that as soon as I step out of the door I'm going to have an adventure wether I like it or not.

It didn't end there. Later that day when we were packing up I returned to the car with a bevy of boxes and loaded them in. The car park was empty, only our car remained. Great! Just one more trip and we are done, three minutes later, struggling with a trolley full and balancing a chair on one arm I was amazed to see that a large people carrier had parked next to us and left precisely six inches in which for me to get in. Great, just bloody great, a hundred and six spaces with a hundred and five empty and you decide to park next to me, not only that you give me a gap the size of a gnats chuff in which to squeeze through to get in.

I ended up clambering through the passenger side so I could move the car, which looked incredibly silly in an empty car park, you really couldnt write it could you. I was half tempted to leave a note along the lines of 'Thank you for being so thoughtful and protecting the right side of my car from damage with your skilful parking. I would have loved to have offered you the same service but after trying unsuccessfully to squeeze so close and better your six inches gap I only managed to scrape a little of your paint off. I'm sure that it will buff out along with the few dents I left. Have a nice day and stay lucky! A.Sole'

Anybody fancy some half eaten Cajun chicken? It smells a little of garlic but its good eats!

 

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