It’s not good for the heart rate to get an email saying: ‘Now you’ve done it’ – especially when it appears that you really have done it.
The message arrived last Thursday and it related to my solemn promise of some weeks ago to a lady traffic warden that I would never again park on double yellow lines.
It was immediately after this that I discovered that there was someone watching over me from an office window in Athol Street. A further email came from whoever it was – no name, just young@manx.net – to say that I had been observed parking on the double yellow lines outside the Douglas office of the Britannia Building Society.
I responded triumphantly that there was only one yellow line present, the other having been erased by road repairs, and therefore I had not broken my promise or committed any offence.
But last Thursday came this other email from Mr or Mrs Young saying: ‘Now you’ve done it. During this week a crack team of DoI guys descended on Athol Street at crack of dawn in some serious hi-vis clothing. The first two men used a nifty little machine to scrub and scrape the last remaining bit of yellow line off the road,
‘Then two used good old-fashioned hard brooms to clear off the dust from the lovely new surface. Then a man with a lorry used a big pressure washer to clean everything. So now there are no lines on that side of the road at all. You’re welcome to park there to deposit your wealth in the Britannia and nothing will happen. Is this you using your celebrity status to have the lines removed because you were breaking your parking promise? I have to say it’s impressive.’
In fact the whole damn thing has backfired right in my fat face. The DoI guys hadn’t quite finished their work by last Thursday. People driving along Athol Street from Upper Church Street to St George’s Street on the following Friday morning found bright new yellow lines urging them to keep on going. The DoI have won the day in another dawn raid.
Mind you, they might like to know that I have also found not only triple yellow lines elsewhere in Douglas because of road repairs, but even quadruple yellows. The Isle of Man leads the way again.
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Last week I reported an unexpected encounter with ‘Mr Bit’, the Douglas painter and decorator whose van I have already drawn attention to. I now know that his real name is Paul Dowty, son of another notable Manx personality, Bob Dowty of motor cycle racing fame.
Paul told me he got the idea for Mr Bit when he was doing some painting work for his mother: ‘She was watching over me and suddenly said: “You’ve missed a bit”.’
A boy’s best friend is his mother.
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Mrs P, one of my regulars, rang me about whether we had boats or ferries. She told me: ‘They were doing a road works report on Manx Radio and said some were going on at Laxey – at Ferry Cottage.’ Meanwhile, last week’s Examiner reported: ‘The Steam Packet’s new boat MV Arrow is to begin operating on April 28th.
Are ferries getting that sinking feeling?
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In a letter in the Examiner Margy Wooding rebuked me for what I said about the pronunciation of ‘research.’ She was right to do so. I hadn’t done my research properly.
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No room yet for incoming Manx crossword clues. But there is for this week’s church notice: ‘Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will pass this way again’, giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.’