The case of the parking spot & the crazy neighbour.

The front yard of my block of apartments has been undergoing a remodelling over the last few months.  It is apparently to be transferred from ugly and uninviting to a barbeque area.  They demolished the front fence, took out the big peppercorn tree, demolished the letterboxes and have built an enclosure for the rubbish skips which live right at the entrance to the property.  There are rumours we are getting a security gate which will govern access to the property.  None of this has been communicated to those of us who are mere tenants.

The barbecue area is a nice idea, although I'm not sure how much it will be used, given its location.  The new letterboxes are much more secure.  The bin area I'm not sure about.  I'm not sure how we'll get access to the bins to deposit rubbish once all the bins are in there!  We'll see.

Here's what I came home to on 20 February this year:

Looking towards the street. (c) divacultura 2012

Looking from the footpath. (c) divacultura 2012

Looking from the driveway. (c) divacultura 2012

It's certainly not Backyard Blitz. At the rate they're going, our barbeque area should be ready for deepest winter.  Excellent!

On Friday morning, heard the beeping of a truck reversing into the driveway.  I looked out the window to see pouring rain and a cement truck reversing into the parking bay that belongs to my very particular neighbour whom I call Gottfried.  (You can read more about him and his neighbourly relations in this post.) For those who haven't read about Gottfried, the key thing to know is that he yells at anyone who parks in his parking space, or even thinks about stopping there.  That sounds reasonable, until it is revealed that he does not have a car.  With all of the activity happening at the front of the building, there have been regular displays of Gottfried's particular view of the world. To remove the temptation for anyone who may be considering parking a work truck there, he has taken to parking the trailer he uses with his bicycle.  (It is red and has a rather jaunty pinwheel attached which whirls in the wind.  Quite unexpected.)

As I looked out the window I saw one of the men get out of the cement truck and move Gottfried's bike trailer so the truck could be parked in his space, allowing ready access to the cement from the site where it would be poured.  I quickly retreated behind the blinds, wondering how long it would be before Gottfried was out there tearing strips off these blokes.

It took about a minute.  I heard the truck move.  As a result the truck had to park in the entry to the driveway, blocking all access to the property - at 7:30 in the morning when lots of people would be needing to go to work.  In the space of the next 20 minutes, those poor men had to move the truck seven times to allow cars out.  Seven!

But at least Gottfried's parking bay was free.