I have worked in Milton Keynes for 4 years now and have paid (I think) £235 per year to park my car in a public car park outside of my office. This year it has gone up to £270 (more if you live outside of Milton Keynes). For that I am not guaranteed a parking place and there have been times where I have not been able to get one within a 5 minute walk of my office.

I have been fined £30 on each of these occasions:

• They wrote my car registration wrong on my ticket (got 2 letters the wrong way around). This was not noticed for 6 months, then one day I got fined
  • I wrote 2 letters of complaint but did not hear anything back by post/e-mail/telephone (is it illegal to ignore challenges to appeals?)
• I took my car in to get serviced and had a hire car. Out of habit I walked from my hire car to the office without paying for a parking ticket
  • I wrote them a letter and they replied to say ‘tough’
• I have twice forgotten to renew (they don’t send reminders). My fault I know, but I think they should give a reminder or warning first (with 5 days to pay)
  • I appealed once but they said ‘tough’

The really bad things are:

• The parking ticket does not say that you can pay on-line, but you can
• They do not always reply to letters or e-mails
• You can’t order a new parking permit on-line
• You can order a parking permit via the post, but it takes up to 10 days – and they still have to phone you for the credit card payment
• To get a parking permit quickly, you have to visit their office in Central Milton Keynes (which is only open from 0900 – 1700) and in the past it has generally taken 1 hour (queueing)

So tomorrow I will have to:

• Pay for a parking ticket so that I can park outside my office. I will have to do this by mobile phone as I haven’t got change available
• Walk to the council office and buy a 1 year parking permit at £270…

Next time you see a car parking attendant, ask them: What are you? Some bottom-feeding, scum sucking algae eater?

On Friday 17th April I left Milton Keynes at 18:15  for the 2 hour 20 minute drive (according to TomTom) and encountered very slow traffic on the M1 and then REALLY slow (stop/start) traffic on the M25, so I got to Port Solent at around 21:30. Because I arrived late (and also because the seating arrangements were not working properly!) I wasn’t able to sit with my team, instead I plonked myself at the only free space I could see, grabbed some dinner and helped the team I was with answer some questions on the charity quiz – I guessed (correctly) that the most popular computer game was The Sims and I bought 3 answers for £5 from the organisers.

After the dinner and the quiz I finally got to meet 2 of my fellow crew members. Then we went to bed at 01:30 – the bed I had was okay, just a little short. I was still awake at 02:15 when another member of our crew joined us, Annoyingly he got to sleep before I did! I don’t know how much sleep I got – just 2-3 hours I think (half due to discomfort and half due to excitement! ). My new sleeping bag proved itself by keeping me warm though.

In the morning we picked up our waterproofs and a bacon and egg butty. Then the 2 remaining crew-members turned up, having driving down from London.

After quite a lengthy safety talk from the captain, we set off. We used the engine to get us out of the harbour, then put up the sails. It was a calm day and our average speed was probably around 4 knots, which wasn’t fast but it was okay. It was quite cold, but I had come prepared with a base layer, thin jumper, thick wind-proof jumper, waterproof jacket and trousers, gloves and warm buff.

After a few hours of pottering about and practing it was time for the first race. We started really well but lost some ground when we went around a buoy and were unable to put up the 4rd sail when other boats got too close either side of us (the ropes – or ‘sheets’ could have got tangled up with them), so we finished about half way down the field. The second race was better though, we finished at around 5th place.

It was really interesting to see how tactical the racing was and how 2 boats on the same line, going in the same direction can be doing different speeds – it all depends on many factors.

After the second race we went back to the port and docked (this took a long time as we were quite far out by the end of the second race).

It was a shame that there was no ‘closing ceremony’ such as drinks, prize giving, etc. So I said goodbye to my team and gave 1 of my team and her friend a lift to the local train station.

I was tempted to have a look around Portsmouth or a nearby area, but by this time it was around 19:30 so I didn’t bother, I just headed home.

The lunches were good but the hotel dinners were not so good. I went to a local cinema and although it had 14 screens, I was in screen 14 and it was tiny – just 6 rows of seats! I saw ‘He’s just not that into you‘ which was okay, although ‘Love Actually‘ is similar and far better.

Hotel Dinner