urban planning........

I have a real problem with navigation when driving on my own. My sense of direction is not great and I often used to get lost. But with the arrival of the Tom Tom a whole new world opened up for me :~)))

It means that I can bargain and buy stuff on our local Dutch e-Bay type site (Marktplaats). The Tom Tom takes me to the smallest villages or streets I didn't even know existed.

BUT today I'd picked up one bargain of two suns beds for 10 euros..... then was supposed to carry on to pick up some pots for the garden. The Tom Tom would not pick up a signal and I had to revert to looking at a map and eventually phoning home for directions :~( This  all took twice as long and meant a lot of stopping, turning around and generally getting het up.

When I eventually found the place I needed, it turned out to be one of those suburban areas, known days gone by, as a 'hofje' which meant a courtyard with small houses for elderly people to spend their last days in. I suppose the translation would be almshouses.

Nowadays these are places are called 'woonerf' which literally translated means 'living on small plot of land' where pedestrians and cyclists have priority over motorists, and the size of the houses and streets is usually small.  Plus the configuration of the roads means it's really hard to find a particular number.

The trouble is that urban planners and councils never think to put up signs with road names and/or signs with which numbers are in which bit of the maze like hofjes. Imagine trying to find an address in the 'woonerf' on the right. No roads names or numbers !

Eventually, after several false turns, I found the house I needed, but it made me wonder how ambulances, fir engines or even delivery vans find these addresses ! Must be a nightmare !



PS when I got home I looked up how to reset the Tom Tom:
hold the on/off button for several seconds until you hear it bleep = software reset.

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