This thread is for information related to the care and feeding of cars when one doesn't have an off-road parking space for them.

I have just taken my car for a spin round the block. There were like 4 empty parking spaces so I felt safe in going round the larger block, not the minimal block round the houses, but the one where you go down by the quays and up the hill and round by the Co-op, you know.

That only took 5 minutes so I let it run on for another 10 minutes while I adjusted the parking mirror.

Now it should be fine till I go shopping on Monday at 6am.

Forgot to mench, yesterday's grocery run went well.

There was a false alarm when I got back, I thought there was a big white van in my space, but it was just waiting there to let a bus come past in the other direction.

Good run today. But when I got back I noticed that someone had left the luggage cover for a Mazda up my back passage

My downhill neighbour often leaves things there outside his gate and forgets about them, so hopefully it's his.

It was my neighbour who left the luggage cover there. He was very grateful when I informed him about it.

Today I donned my hi-vis tabard and braved the roaring traffic to check my tyre pressures. All 4 were correct

When I got back from exercising the car this morning, someone had taken my space.

That hasn't happened for ages and ages, since last May at the earliest.

I did however get the next best space, the one that's next to it up the hill.

Fangirl Three wrote:

It was my neighbour who left the luggage cover there. He was very grateful when I informed him about it.

Today I donned my hi-vis tabard and braved the roaring traffic to check my tyre pressures. All 4 were correct

I've got a little button I can press and it tells me if the pressure is low.

In my experience, everything's fine until you start fiddling with those little nozzle thingies. Then you have to keep constantly messing with them,

Fangirl Three wrote:

That hasn't happened for ages and ages, since last May at the earliest.

It was in November 2017, according to my spreadsheet.

Quote :

In my experience, everything's fine until you start fiddling with those little nozzle thingies. Then you have to keep constantly messing with them

On my first car I knackered one of the nozzles trying to connect the pump, and that tyre never would stay properly pumped after that.

Praise be! I was just about to have vodka and crumpets when I heard a sudden shrieking of worn-out brake pads. Sure enough the bandit vehicle was driving away, and I hurried out and let my car roll forwards into its rightful place.

These light mornings make exercising the car much more pleasant than it is in the dark of winter. The reservoir was glittering blue among the green hills (that's hills in the Essex sense, what you might call folds or hummocks elsewhere).

Just before the reservoir causeway this morning there was a big dead badger lying in the road. I had to slow right down cos there was a van coming the other way and I didn't want to hit the corpse.

When I got back, the parking gods smiled on me again. I was a bit worried, cos it's half-term and always harder to park then.

New neighbours have arrived 2 doors up. I have them under parking behaviour assessment surveillance.

Yellow no parking cones have appeared on the other side of the road again. That generally means they're going to work on the water main.

But this time, there are also red cones between every 4 cars or so on this side.

I don't know what that means, do I have to move my car or not?

I worked out that the yellow cones mean 'We're going to be working here tomorrow, about 9am we'll be swaggering about importantly in our hi-vis jackets, but you needn't actually move your car till about 10' and the red cones mean 'We're going to be putting warning signs about other roadworks down the road in the spots where these red cones are, so rest easy.'

And on that basis there was work down the lower section of our bit of road last Friday. And that was finished yesterday and I dared dream it was over.

But.

When I got home tonight there were yellow cones all over the upper section of our bit of road - fortunately still at least 70 yards from my own frontage - and one of them had a laminated A4 sheet tied round it saying 'WORK COMMENCES 10:30, TILL 14:30' and I felt vindicated.

But.

There's an air of menace about the whole enterprise. roadworks.org says the last day of the works is next Monday, so that means that works could be targeting my own turf Thursday, Friday or next Monday. I hope it isn't Thursday, because that's bin day and recycling day too.

It's so stressful, I think having a car and nowhere to park it is the worst first world problem there is.

The nightmare continues - this morning a burly roadworker was using one of those cable detector things across the road, and spraying blue hieroglyphics on the pavement.

I reckon tomorrow will be the day