We don’t want wet feet
PAVEMENTS are for walking on not for wading, so why does Weymouth town centre have so many impromptu paddling pools?
Walking round the town centre in a torrential downpour on Saturday was a bit like a scene from “Singing in the Rain”.
Large pools of water seemed to submerge almost every pavement with some of them several inches deep.
Time after time elderly people were caught out, heads bent to one side to avoid the slashing rain only for them to walk straight into one of these giant puddles and get wet feet.
Maybe gleeful children loved it, several I saw had to be visibly restrained from jumping into the pools, but for the rest of us it was a watery obstacle course.
Quite clearly the block paving used to create many pavements had been damaged or depressed, presumably by lorries, and the result was a shallow indentation ripe for inundation.
Nobody expects town centres to be without the odd puddle or two, but the sheer scale of the problem that day was unbelievable with literally hundreds of pools of water embracing almost every street.
Something has got to be done to allow shoppers to walk about without having to negotiate sheets of water at almost every step.
Watch out for the ice on the inside
FOR a long time now the sight of people scraping ice off their cars has been commonplace.
I know the weather has eased a bit now, but these two personal incidents stick in my mind.
One came as I piled into my car to set off for a job. My teeth had been chattering in sub-zero temperatures as I hastily started the engine and got the heater going, but I couldn’t believe what happened next.
My face slowly clouded over in the mirror and I reached up to wipe away the condensation only to find out it was ice! Winter outside the car is one thing, but ice actually inside the car was something I’ve never experienced before.
Then I looked at the temperature gauge and all was explained. It read -7° C and you don’t see that too often in Weymouth.
The second incident was my own fault but something I caused by an automatic reaction.
It was a different set of sub-zero temperatures and I was driving along behind a lorry which was chucking up muddy water on to my windscreen.
Without thinking I triggered the windscreen wash and immediately lost sight of everything as water hit the screen, was spread by the wipers and promptly turned to ice.
I immediately pulled over, turned the heaters and blowers on full and it soon cleared, but how many other people haven’t been so lucky with similar experiences? A cautionary tale to remember.
A real case of man flu
I’VE just been ill, none of your minor heart attack or strokes mind you, but a proper serious life-threatening illness.
My cold began with a dry throat and erupted into a streaming nose and hacking cough.
So I did what any man in that situation would do… I wrote a will.
Having got that out of the way, I decided I deserved a quick end, so I logged on to NHS Direct to get some expert advice on ending it all because there was clearly no hope of my surviving.
They seemed remarkably disinterested, something about people not bothering them with minor conditions such as colds because they were up to their stethoscopes in real winter illnesses and injuries.
I logged off in a huff. Didn’t they realise that my cold was serious?
Clearly not and quite right too because doctors, surgeries and hospitals are creaking at the seams with genuine medical issues and a cold, while a right pain in the nose, is something people are being encouraged to grin and bear.
So I grinned and bore it and I’m getting better now thanks to my new wonder medicine. Amazing what a couple of stiff Calvados will do.
Sorry madam!
THERE wasn’t much snow but enough to sprinkle a public garden in Weymouth.
Along one path was a man swaddled in a thick coat, gloves, scarf and hat who wanted to record the winter scene with a photograph, so he hailed a fellow heavily clad pedestrian and asked him if he’d mind stepping on to the little carpet of white to give the photograph some perspective.
The newcomer obligingly posed for the camera and the photographer said: “Thanks for that, mate. Don’t see snow often in Weymouth.”
His subject then acutely embarrassed him by saying he was welcome… in what was clearly the voice of a woman. She was so heavily wrapped up against the cold that the photographer hadn’t realised she was a woman!
www.viewfrompublishing.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment