69. Raspberries

Caroline calls me a “raspberry”.  

In rhyming slang, “raspberry ripple” is a cripple.  Enfield Borough Council, which is more politically correct, nicer and much kinder than my wife, officially classes me as physically disabled and as a result I am entitled to have and to use a “Parking Card for Disabled People”, more usually known as a Blue Badge.  When displayed on my car’s dashboard, it allows me several parking concessions.

I am allowed, obviously, to park in disabled bays in public, supermarket and office car parks but I am also allowed to park on single and double yellow lines anywhere in the country except in the four London boroughs of City of London, Westminster, Camden, and Kensington and Chelsea. 

I always aim to use the disabled bays in car parks.  It is not the fact that they are near to the building that makes them essential for me; it’s the fact that they are considerably wider than ordinary parking bays.

When I bought my current car I intentionally chose one with only two doors. If I open the door as wide as it will go and slide the seat back as far as it will go, I can swivel on my bottom and simply step out. This procedure is reversed when entering it.

The driver’s door of my car is wider than the door of a 4-door saloon and therefore more space is needed to open it fully. Once out of the car I can walk fairly comfortably across the widest car park and back again.  As far as I’m concerned, disabled parking bays could be positioned anywhere in a car park.  They do not have to be close to a door but they do have to be wide.

There is a £1000 fine for the improper use of a disabled parking bay but that fact does not act as any sort of deterrent and I get very cross when fit and able people park in disabled bays.  If there is no blue badge showing on the dashboard and I come across the driver, I often say something.  Usually the person concerned is embarrassed and apologetic.  Sometimes they are not and sometimes they are very aggressive. 

“If you wasn’t a fucking cripple I’d beat your fucking head in.” 

This was the witty riposte from one charming lady recently. She certainly doesn’t suffer from L’esprit de l’escalier” (see Bon Mots) but that’s not exactly what I’d call repartee.  Often I am told to simply, “Fuck off.” 

I heard of a woman who has leaflets printed that look something like this: 

YOU HAVE TAKEN MY PARKING SPACE.

WOULD YOU LIKE MY DISABILITY TOO?

She leaves one under the windscreen wiper of any vehicle parked in a disabled bay without displaying a badge.  I suspect that the therapeutic effect they have on her is of more value than the effect they have upon the recipients.

I did some research at Sainsbury’s in Winchmore Hill on Saturday morning.  There are 24 disabled parking bays.  At 11:25 they were all occupied and so I had to drive around until one became free.  Upon inspection I found that 9 vehicles (8 cars and 1 van) had no badge showing. 

There is a highly visible notice at Sainsbury’s informing the shoppers that the Car Park is continually monitored and there is a £60 fine for people who park illegally in those bays.  Absolute nonsense!  In the eighteen months that I have been using those bays I have never seen anyone carrying out a check and I’ve never seen a ticket on a windscreen.

I also know that it is nonsense because for the three months I was waiting for my own application to be approved and following advice from my doctor, I parked in them and I was never challenged. 

Many people are in possession of a blue badge but only because a family member is disabled.  Those people are not entitled to use the badge unless the disabled person is a passenger in the car. 

It is also illegal for a disabled person to wait in a car in a disabled bay while a non badge-holder goes shopping or whatever it is they are doing.  I bet you didn’t know that!

We are having roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for lunch today and I discovered that we only had one egg.  I called up to Caroline who was working upstairs.  “I’m going to Sainsbury’s.  We’ve only got one egg.”

As soon as I said it I flinched because I knew what was coming.  In her Edith Piaf voice:

“Are you sure you need to go?  Isn’t one egg un oeuf?”  It’s her favourite joke and sadly, she never tires of it.

I went anyway.  As I got out of my car in a disabled bay at the supermarket a young man in an Audi pulled into the bay next to me, got out and strode off towards the store.  There was a blue badge on the dashboard but this guy was about as disabled as Usain Bolt. I had a brainwave.

You probably don’t know this either because you never see it but on the reverse side of all blue badges is a laminated photograph of the cardholder, his or her signature and the expiry date - of the card, not the cardholder.  (Oh dear. I’ve just checked on the Death Timer website and there’s not much in it.  In fact the card should last longer than me)

I took a twenty-pound note from my wallet called out after him, “Excuse me!”

He stopped. 

“Would you like twenty quid?”  I asked, holding it towards him.

“Yes,” he said.

“You can have it if the photograph on the other side of that badge is of you.” 

Guess what?  I’ve still got my twenty pounds.