Seagulls & parking

The two biggest problems in St Ives, according to holiday makers are greedy seagulls and lack of parking.

The seagulls are very, very greedy but that's only to be expected?! Why on earth would they bother to go looking for their own food when the town is full of people eating pasties, chips & ice cream all day long?!

The second problem - parking....................................is a problem. But when the town was built it was primarily a fishing port, people didn't own cars so the streets are really narrow. Presumably St Ives gets so many visitors because it's a quaint, little, old fashioned, seaside town.

Holiday makers you can't have it all ways??!!

Today we walked through the 'Island car park' (which is the nearest to town & the beaches) to get to the 'Island' where I was going to have a play. The 'Island car park' holds about 100 cars (which isn't very many for the thousands of visitors) but for some reason people are prepared to queue for hours & hours to get a space here??!!! Mad, mad people!

This afternoon as we walked past at least 5 cars that were queuing to get in; the conversation went a bit like this:

Waiting family (dad, mum & 2 squealy brats) - 'Do you live here?'

Ann - 'Yes'

Waiting family - 'How long will we have to wait to get a parking space?'
(Do they think Ann's telepathic or something?!)

Ann - 'Sorry, haven't a clue. A lot of people who are on holiday just park the car here for a week and don't move it until they're going home. You'd probably be best parking at the 1000 space car park at the top of town or the Rugby club car park. Both have little buses that will bring you down to the beaches and town. You could be sitting here forever.'
(Ann thought that was really helpful information and I was dying to get on with my walk).

Waiting family - 'Thanks'
(Said in a tone of voice which obviously portrayed that they hadn't believed a word Ann said)

So off I went for my play (at least half an hour) before going back through the car park. Same waiting family were still there and they weren't even first in the queue.

Another conversation:

Ann - 'Still waiting then?'

Waiting family - 'How long do you think it's going to be now?'
(Obviously still think that Ann's telepathic)

Ann - 'Sorry I don't know'.

And off we went on the rest of our walk.

.........................We're going to go back to the car park tomorrow morning to see if they're still there?!!!!