Phillip Holt's World

This weekend we have been visited by our niece Pei Theng Ng, a Malaysian national, who has just finished her degree at the London School of Economics (LSE) in London. She has now decided to get her MSc at the University here in Kingston upon Thames.

                                                        Basil Diner (click to read and see menu). It is a good quality restaurant, serving fantastic food for a reasonable price. The problem is the location. Parking is I think a problem, thus diners are few. Such a pity.

                                                         Dim Sum. (C4more).

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Oh Poo Poo, (click to understand) there is no hot water again, such is life, be a good uncle, do what I have to do.

As I have written in a previous entry, I hardly use my cars at all. We are blessed in London with a great public transport system, that is cheap, frequent and reliable. For under £7, you can purchase a travel card, and travel throughout London all day on trains, the underground (metro) or buses.

                                          

All is well if the systems works.

There could be engineering works, strike by the transport workers, the wrong sort of weather, (eg snow), there could be leaves on the rails so that the trains cannot move, a passenger intervention or a passenger taken ill. These excuses wil cause delays or cancellations.

Then the system does not work. But, this is OK if one knows in advance, you can take and make alternative arrangements.

I happened to notice a road sign which said that the main road into Norbiton and Kingston upon Thames, London Road, would be closed between August 7th till August 16th for bridge replacement.

            SouthWest Trains would inform their own staff what will be happening so that travelers can make alternative arrangements, if they are to close the railway line.

see also Norbiton Railway Bridge Replacement

The simple things in life comes to he that waits.

Today we have hot (ish) water for showers and washing.

Since the flood one week ago, and the lack of hot water as the boiler room was flooded, I listen and watched a some residents became frustrated and some angry.

These people seem to get through life by shouting, abusing others, venting their frustration with their anger.

Here in Norbiton Hall, we have a parking problem. Although there are roads in the complex, there is just enough space to have perhaps one parking space per flat.

Around the streets of Kingston upon Thames and Norbiton, they have strict parking enforcement, with parking wardens ready to place a parking fine ticket on any car not displaying a parking permit, paying to park on the street, or that their time has run out. It is both expensive to park here, and even more expensive to get caught not paying to park.

As our estate is private land, we can park for free, but then the office workers in the area try and use our spaces, visitors or shoppers do the same, as do residents from other areas. Using our limited spaces.

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Residents now have more than one car per flat, especially those flats where they have multiple occupancies, students (were do they get the money, I thought they were poor) from Kingston University, more and more immigrants, all putting more strain on the limited spaces. 

So the management have placed a parking badge scheme, each flat has the right to a parking badge assigned to a specific car, plus one visitors permit. This can be abused too, by people letting family, friends or others use the permits.

If there is a car parked in the grounds without a permit, we have a security firm who will clamp the car, and it costs the owner a lot of money to get it freed. There are plenty of warnings at the entrances to the estate, but some who choose not to notice or think they can get away with it, pay the penalty.

When these people loose their temper, get angry, shouting and cursing, not only do they upset the staff, other residents listening to them, but also themselves in a big way. 

There are rules why we have to have the system in place, else the residents will have nowhere to park. But, some people only see things from their point of view, there cat on the mat. (click to read).

There was no reason to get upset about the lack of water, it was a simple thing that got resolved, and now we can appreciate the simple things in life.

It is the simple things in life that we become unaware of in our daily life. Perhaps it is the Miller 7+/- 2 (click) where we are only aware of a very small amount of the vast information about the environment around us.