Yesterday Stephen and I went to Chichester yesterday. This was following the national report, at last seen fit to be newsworthy, about the Arundel by-pass.
It is astonishing to me that this dispute of a distant promise of a new road to continue the A27 at Crossbush, where it is now FIFTEEN years since the road construction finished there, looking at a field of cows immediately ahead. There has been a constant traffic jam there, exacerbated by local-ish people, who know the area well cutting up on the inside lane, to the turn off south to Littlehampton at to the traffic lights, and there rudely cutting back in to the main right-hand stream, taking motorists on the Chichester, Portsmouth and beyond. In summer and bank holidays, it is a nightmare that can cause a two-mile drive from there to Littlehampton to take half an hour or more.
Watching the result of the recent talks about building the A27 trunk road extension by-passing Arundel, the bottom line, was the announcement that the long delay had hugely increased the cost and that the building might start in three or four years! Saints preserve us from the government and local council’s deadly tardiness. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Meanwhile there will be major protests at the route, that cuts through some ancient woodland. Selfishly I want the road completed. The driving time to Chichester is now about half an hour or ten minutes after 10pm at night.
Anyway, after an exercise involving some of deep breathing. Back to my starting point today. Steve and I went on a first careful shopping trip to Chichester yesterday. The first few things that were on our list, were a pair of hiking boots for Stephen for a start, mainly because I had acquired a new pair for my birthday as my old ones were quite dead. On a test drive of my new boots, it became clear that Steve must be next in the new boots queue. So now we both have good support once more. We were into long walks long before triathlon came along to rule our lives by the way.
Our mission began, north of The Cross in the centre of Chi. I wanted to go into Closs and Hamlyn haberdashery department, having in the eight months of home amusement, used up all of my store of various lengths of dressmaking materials. I was also totally out of elastic, having busied myself using up my scraps to make hair scrunchies, and the latest scheme of face masks that are more comfortable than the standard issue. My sewing bank is now restocked, but the best purchase was an impulse buy from the remnant counter. Nearly three metres of some fine shades of grey material that will make me a shirt (and some scrunchies) that was an end of line piece marked down to £29 on remnant label, then further reductions slashing the price down to £12, then £6, and then £3. That is an example of how badly some stores are doing. My gain and definitely their loss.
There are now many, many more people wearing masks. People who like Steve and I, are doing our best to try to prevent this plague from going on forever. That was some small comfort.
All the stores have alcohol hand cleansers and some restrictions of numbers entering. We also have our own supply in the car of the hand sanitizers and baby wipes and tissues and spare masks and gloves.
Neither of us are happy shoppers, we both work to strictly to our list and never…. NEVER, wander idly around window shopping; we have a life to get on with.
However, that said. We did want to take a look at the other spot that has been causing a manic traffic jam for what seemed like forever, until just recently when a large new roundabout was completed. It still looks as though it were built just to service access to the HUGE brand, new Lidl store. We have to confess that we were impressed with the new store that is an incredible improvement on the existing old store in the town. We did pick up a number of stock items and really good prices.
When we got home it was time to go to pick up our rather old VW Golf, ‘Marcus’, who was having his MOT. Amazingly we got off quite lightly since we wondered if poor old Marcus was worth keeping any longer since I have hardly driven at all during the plague period. We walked to pick the old boy up passing by my daughter’s home on foot, since it is close to the garage we were heading for. Neither Jacqueline of her husband Martin or the ruler of their home Jeffrey, the working Cocker Spaniel, were at home. I had brought of a gift of a plastic bag full of hair scrunchies. These I popped through the letter box before going on the Mike Hammonds where Marcus was waiting to come home. Later when I had not heard back from her, I sent a text to see if she had found the scrunchies. She said that she had been hoovering later in the day when the dog brought them to her and dropped them at her feet, they were amazingly unharmed or chewed.
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