Anger is a terrible thing. So I try not to go there too often.
But I was frightfully annoyed (much more English) on Saturday.
Having left the Mothers Day shop until the eve of the great day, I drove to Islington which provides a very pleasant shopping experience and a good array of emporia for the unfocused shopper to peruse whilst finding the appropriate gift.
Arriving at one of the backstreets near the Angel at around 12.50, I parked and scrutinised the parking regulations displayed on a board and on the pay and display machine.Parking had to be paid for until 1.30 pm after that point parking was free. The pay and display ticket machine is designed to take credit cards but that functionality was out of action. I pumped in all the coins I had in my pocket to find that this would only cover me until 1.19pm. A gap of eleven minutes.
I weighed up the pros and cons. Should I retrieve my coins, go to a petrol station or somewhere else where I could park without risk of punishment, get some change, return to the spot and pay and display? Or should I take a chance that for eleven minutes this street would be clear of parking enforcement officers?
I decided to risk it.
I went shopping , purchased some nice little gifts, and returned to the car.
And of course there was a parking ticket (£40) on the car issued at 1.21pm ie two minutes after my ticket expired.
Naturally I was wrong to break the clearly stated parking regulations.
But I do feel frightfully annoyed , perhaps even angry , that one little slip up for the little person can be very expensive, whilst others seem to do pretty well financially out of much bigger cock-ups.
As I would have said aged six "It's not fair."