Rutland columnist Allan Grey fed up of Oakham level crossing

You may have gathered from several previous columns that Lanzarote, and Playa Blanca in particular, hold a very special place in the hearts of the Lovely Lady and I, writes Rutland columnist Allan Grey.

We have been visiting one particular resort regularly for nearly 30 years, watching the place expand seemingly exponentially over that time, but fortunately still retaining its charm and always welcoming us back.

Saturday, August 3, would have been our golden wedding anniversary. Fifty years on from the church ceremony in tiny St Hilary, a small village 10 miles north of St Athan in South Wales. At the time, St Athan was one of the largest RAF bases in the UK, where the Brat’s father was based at the time.

The Lovely Lady was a Brat, as opposed to a brat, obviously, a British Regiment Attached Traveller, an acronym that pertains to children who grew up in military families and accompanied their parents overseas, or wherever they were posted. For the Lovely Lady this included being born in Malta, followed by three years in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), several locations south and east in the UK, and finally Singapore.

Many Brats now wear that acronym as a badge of honour, often because the many moves, stresses and cultural experiences have made them more resilient than their civilian counterparts, and the Lovely Lady was nothing if not resilient.

And so, 50 years on, your columnist and his two daughters and their families gathered for a very special dinner in Playa Blanca, at our happy place, raising a glass to a wonderful daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, oh, and mother-in-law.

Just to let us know that she was keeping an eye on us, the very same piece of music she had chosen to welcome us to her funeral service, The Sound of Silence, as covered by Disturbed, was playing as we entered the bar and restaurant, a coincidence - or a sign. We all know what we think. Happy anniversary Lovely Lady.

Before travelling, I had seen many posts on Facebook about long queues to get through passport control in Arrecife, now having to have our passports stamped on entry because we are outside the EU, and then more problems when leaving to ensure passports were stamped on exit, confirming we had not overstayed our welcome.

At this busy time of year, the height of the summer season, one does expect some delays, but all went very smoothly, our luggage was waiting as we approached the baggage carousel, and transport to our resort ready and waiting, the roads all clear and recently re-surfaced. All very efficient, and very welcoming, and similarly efficient on departure.

I have to admit, a week was enough. A bittersweet but necessary experience given we had visited together in March, just a month before she slipped away. I was happy to get back home, albeit home is now definitely on the wrong side of the tracks in Oakham, the ward I live in known to my friends from the right side of the tracks, as The People’s Democratic Republic of Oakham North-West.

Time for a rant now, so, here goes… Lanzarote was as ever welcoming, Oakham not so much.

Does anyone in authority, anyone working cosily from home somewhere way outside Rutland care one single iota that it is now more difficult and less welcoming to get into Oakham from the west than it is to enter North Korea waving the Stars and Stripes, singing the Star Spangled Banner and munching a Maccy D?

Does anyone in authority care a jot that we have months of road closures plus random traffic light control of phantom road works, or work that would take just a few days in any communist country, all delivering a massive daily gridlock at the single border crossing?

Is it true, what I’ve heard on the grapevine, that in order to minimise this gridlock, the invisible, seemingly unaccountable autocrats will soon require residents from the boondocks to apply for visas, requiring them to be presented at control points either side of the main crossing to enter and leave the town centre? Will we have to have our visas stamped just to visit The Grainy for a pint of Osprey?

Will we all be rationed to a two-hour time slot just to scoff down an oat milk mocha at our favourite delicatessen, then have to hurry back before curfew?

It certainly wouldn’t surprise me, as there seems no end to the disregard to which west of Oakham residents are subjected.

At a recent visit to the Brooke Road ‘no man’s land’, I chatted to a young guy with a fashionable hair bun and a hi-viz tabard. He was there, apparently commissioned to care, not for residents, not for pedestrians, but for the nesting pigeons, in case the tree removals might offend them while they were procreating. I suggested they should all be shot on sigh. They care not one hoot for me at 4.30am in the morning, when they are all hooting for England, looking for their next bit of rumpy pumpy on my rooftop.

OK, rant over, calm down Allan. I think I need to see if I can get an appointment to see my doctor, hopefully in the next few months. I’m sure it’s a recurring bout of Oakham delirium, sadly with no cure in sight.