The long way

I've been known to take the long way home on many occasions.  But I never take the long way to work.  Not unless there are policemen standing beside police cars with flashing lights, indicating all traffic turn off the main road and take a back road to town.  The detour added about half an hour to my trip.  I will go that way home from work soon - I saw a neat old barn and an 'interesting' letter box I'd like to photograph. 

I was tempted to take the photos this morning but I had an impatient person in the car behind me and got tooted at when I stopped to take this shot.  See that huge gap I allowed to develop while I raised the camera?  And I don't think that line of traffic was about to take off at speed. 

But I figured the driver was a bit stressed about taking the long way to town.  By the time we reached this point, we would have been in town for about 15-20 minutes had the road not been closed.  Maybe they had a pressing appointment, maybe their boss would not appreciate them being so late arriving at work.  Who knows.  But that horn toot told me I wouldn't be helping their mood if I stopped again, so I played nice.

Anyway, I was still in a good mood from a pleasant experience I had yesterday.  I was filling time before joining colleagues for drinks after work and went for a drive to see if I could get a photo of my favourite restaurant from the far side of the marina.  But there were no stopping places anywhere along the road, except for a bus bay.  So I quickly pulled into it and jumped out of the car as quickly as I could to grab a few shots.  I was just about to get back into the car when the sail shaped roof of the Artisans Market caught my eye, so I took this shot.  

Now the funny bit.

I was about to drive away when I noticed a man running along the marina walkway towards me and I could see he was trying to catch my attention.  I waited and even wound down the car window so he could talk to me.  He asked what had I been taking a photo of but before I could answer said my name and then repeated it with my surname (in case I didn't believe him at first?)  I was taken aback, half way through saying 'the boats' before acknowledging that yes I was me.  I was thinking more along the lines of how the hell does this guy know my name than this guy knows me.  Of course, he quickly said who he was and I couldn't believe that he had recognized me.  He went to school with my children, was in my oldest daughter's class I think and I don't think I've seen him since they left school and that's more than 25 years ago.   

I just had to ask why he wanted to know what I was taking photos of.  And laughed when he said that truck parked on the grass verge in front of me was his and he thought I was a parking inspector taking photos as evidence of his illegal parking. 

So, young Greg, here's the photo and not a truck in sight.