Wellington (NZ) February 2015 "Time stands still"
02/02/15 22:04
I had selected a church in Wellington for us to go to this Sunday. The previous day we had stayed overnight in a town some 25 km from that city and I had taken time in the evening to research the route I would be taking the next day and where I would be able to park the car. However getting ready to depart that day had taken longer than I had expected and to my horror when we finally got moving we had only 25 minutes to get there before the service was due to start. I didn't think I had a chance of doing that as I would be driving slowly through the city suburbs and had no intention of speeding in that country. So I followed everyone else on the roads and kept glancing at the speedometer to ensure I was not exceeding the limit. Thankfully with it being a Sunday the roads were not crowded and as I arrived outside the conference centre where the service was being held I finally took courage to look at the dashboard clock. The journey had taken less than 25 minutes which I thought was decidedly odd. Surely I should be at least five minutes late rather than a few minutes early? Nevertheless I didn't have much time to ponder over that before I realised we had a more pressing problem. The car park I had chosen to use was closed!
I had used Google Streetview to identify car parking locations but hadn't checked to see if that would be open on a Sunday. This one wasn't and the car park outside the venue was already full. I now had to find roadside parking outside a busy venue and no doubt this would be difficult given the church's location. So it was with a pretty heavy heart that I started to drive round the venue and approach the first side road and looked down it. It was 100m in length with cars parked in every available spot except … the first one! I gazed at it in disbelief and then turned our car into that empty parking bay. We were less than 100m from the church entrance and by the time we walked in we were only five minutes late (which counts as being on time as far as I am concerned!)
So there are two things of note from today. First a car journey that really should have taken five minutes longer than it actually did and then finding an empty car parking spot right at the front of the queue.
I had used Google Streetview to identify car parking locations but hadn't checked to see if that would be open on a Sunday. This one wasn't and the car park outside the venue was already full. I now had to find roadside parking outside a busy venue and no doubt this would be difficult given the church's location. So it was with a pretty heavy heart that I started to drive round the venue and approach the first side road and looked down it. It was 100m in length with cars parked in every available spot except … the first one! I gazed at it in disbelief and then turned our car into that empty parking bay. We were less than 100m from the church entrance and by the time we walked in we were only five minutes late (which counts as being on time as far as I am concerned!)
So there are two things of note from today. First a car journey that really should have taken five minutes longer than it actually did and then finding an empty car parking spot right at the front of the queue.