Jane Lovering: Parking space is the final frontier after upsizing

Out here in the wilds of North Yorkshire, existence without a car is almost impossible. We have no public transport, and it’s a three-mile walk to the nearest bus stop.

It is quicker if you go over the fields, but sheep follow you and want to see what’s in your bag. So, if you want to get to work at a reasonable time, or be able to shop for more items than you can fit over your shoulder, a car is an expensive necessity.

For years I’ve driven a small car. A Citroen C1 it is, originally bought to be a “second car”, just a little runabout to take me to work and back, with less boot-space than the average porch.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Unfortunately, due to circumstances that I won’t go into here, this tiny vehicle ended up as the family’s only transport. So, for the last two years I’ve been squeezing my large dog in whenever we want to go for a decent walk, which is like trying to shove a filing cabinet through a letterbox, and changing gear means an inadvertent knee-fondling for anyone in the passenger seat. There’s only room for two in the back seat, and if I strap my grandson in the back in his baby seat, I’m down to only being able to take one other person, and they have to not mind my stroking their leg as I crunch through the gearbox.

But now I’ve got a bigger car. One where having more than two passengers isn’t committing an act of gross indecency and there is a gap between the gear lever and my thigh. There’s enough space in the back for the dogs to turn around, and, if someone tall is sitting in the back I don’t have to have the driver’s seat so far forward that I am steering with my shoulder blades. This is altogether more practical, comfortable and efficient than packing my family into the Citroen like the Keystone Cops, but I have discovered a potential downfall. Some time, during my ownership of a tiny car, North Yorkshire has downsized its parking spaces.

Now, don’t try telling me that they were always this size and it’s my perception that has changed, we’re talking about car parking spaces, not Waggon Wheels (and yes, they were bigger in the old days). Nowadays there are whole ranks of spaces that I dare not drive into for fear of never getting out again, and people look at me as if I’m mad when I drive past empty spaces “because they’re not big enough”, or because there’s a gigantic Range Rover parked opposite and I know I’ll never get enough lock on to squeeze in front of it. There’s nothing more embarrassing than being trapped outside Morrisons for forty-five minutes waiting for a Volvo to move... And no, I can’t parallel park it either.

Jane Lovering is an award- winning romantic comedy writer. Her new book Hubble Bubble is published by Choc Lit.