Lockdown – Space
Posted: Mon 1 June, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Lockdown, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »One of the weirdest things I’ve found about the Lockdown (I can’t really call it the current lockdown any more, the speed with which it’s being rescinded) is that outside my house, there have been many more parking spaces than usual.
I can’t explain it – all logic says that with fewer people travelling, the spaces would’ve been filled at the start of the lockdown and then vehicles wouldn’t have moved. However, that’s not been the case – there are fewer vehicles, and the spaces seem to vary all the time, but there are always spaces.
All I can assume is that where I live has a fair percentage of people who have second homes here (for commuting during the week or whatever- we’re only an hour from London, so it kind of makes sense) and who haven’t been here while things have been different.
I’m not complaining – it’s just always seemed odd to be able to park outside my own house, rather than having to find spaces further away.
Is there a station nearby? It could be that people do half their commute by car, leave it in a road where there’s free parking and then carry on by public transport. My husband’s house is near Reading West station and the few non-residents’ parking spaces are taken up by commuters.
No, nothing in the village. Both closest stations are a ten-minute-ish drive. However, they both have decent car-parks.
My suspicion is that people have second-homes in the village in order for that short drive and commute – it’s quiet during the day, but parking spaces packed in the evening. And with lockdown etc., I assume that if those people were here full-time, the parking spaces would stay filled during the day while they’re not working. Yet that’s not the case – there are more spaces all the time, which says to me that the car-owners aren’t actually village-resident.
I could be wrong, obviously – it’s just something I’m finding interesting