This is my second ranty post in under a week and I am not sure if it is because I am tired and run down but this really pissed me off annoyed me today.
I decided to take the children in my care to a different soft play area today, as a change is always good. We set off with no issues as it was late enough in the morning that the car had already defrosted itself. The journey was uneventful and the traffic seemed OK, so I was pretty certain we would park with no issue.
The soft play area we intended to go to is in central Poole so to keep as close to it as possible I decided to park in the multistory car park. This car park has a severe shortage of parent and toddler spaces and I was not impressed that they had all been taken, but that’s life I suppose. I decided to head on off to the top of the car park where it would be quieter and found a space that had a wall one side and an empty space the other and an empty space behind it, which gave me plenty of room to get the paraphernalia out of the car with the kids.
I parked happily and unpacked the double buggy behind the car when in sped a BMW at breakneck speed. It zoomed into the nice clear space next to my car, hugging the line which meant there was barely a 3″ gap between our cars, meaning I could barely open the door to get the kids out.
I asked him politely to move his car to which I got an expletive and he walked off. Not a great start to my day. I managed to squeeze the kids out the door – if I did any damage to his car then I don’t care, and set off for the lift. As we waited and waited and waited, another car sped into the space behind my car although I didn’t really take much notice.
We waited a little longer until we realised that the lift just wasn’t coming and I was not struggling with a double buggy and a toddler down four flights of stairs so decided to leave. I could barely get to my car – the car behind had parked so close to the bumper that it was almost touching and I physically had to strip off my coat and jumper so I could squeeze into the drivers side door to pull the car forward as there was no way I could lean in and strap the kids into their car seats, never mind get the buggy in the boot.
As you can imagine, I then had to load 3 grumpy toddlers back into the car, plus the double buggy and the bags and headed off to leave. Once I got to the bottom of the car park and the exit, I realised I had left the card in my handbag in the boot, so had to climb out to get it so I could be let out. I inserted it into the machine and low and behold, I had to go back to a payment machine. I pressed the “HELP” button, and the kindly man on the other end explained as I had been 15 minutes I had to pay. Cue a tearful explanation of what happened and he very kindly let me out.
I have numerous recollections of being stuck trying to get into my car when heavily pregnant and people had parked too closely, and now as a childminder trying to strap 3 children into their respective car seats is causing me the same pain. If you are in a car park and park too close to the car next door and see childrens’ car seats – please move your car over just a bit, it really does help!
Yours, a grumpy ChelseaMamma
I always get annoyed when I park on a road and people park so close to my boot that I cannot get my boot open to put the buggy back in the car. Surely when baby seats are in a car it tells other drives that the driver needs access to boot and side doors. Raarrrr so with you on this!
I hate it when people park in front of the house too, but nothing I can do about that!!
Hey not just you even I am against those people who are inconsiderate while parking. I mean even if there are no baby seats in the car it is the other driver’s responsibility to park in an appropriate distance.