I often walk along past the Royal Northern Ireland Yacht Club on a Sunday afternoon. There's a stretch of sea wall which runs for about half a mile from the yacht club along Belfast Lough. It seems to be a tradition for people to park their cars along this stretch of wall and partake in a collection of bizarre pastimes.
There are the very elderly who are taken down for a breath of sea air, they are parked facing the sea, window down and they get a blast of icy Siberian wind.
Sometimes the elderly people bring down the Sunday papers, often the passenger has nothing to read and many people pass the time reading the car manual from the glove box. I have seen people crotchet and knit, look at holiday brochures and photo albums. Maps seem to be quite popular, the AA Road atlas is a common companion.
Often recently purchased gadgets are brought down, I'm using the term gadgets in a rather loose term, a better description may be objects from the Kleeneze and Betterware catalogues. Things like the vegomatic which can chip or make batons from any type of vegetable or the plastic rock that sits in your rockery for hiding the spare key. They are usually pretty easy things to use, but they will not be put in to operation until the complete manual has been read cover to cover facing Belfast Lough.
The most bizarre was yesterday when an elderly couple had removed a picture from their wall to bring down and look at. It was early Sunday morning so I'm quite sure they hadn't just bought it. The picture was about 1.5 metres long and was a tight fit wedged between two elderly people in the front seat of a Micra.
It seems to have got out of hand in recent months and in an effort to keep up with the Jones's some have purchased Winnebagos to park up and cook breakfast and cups of tea. Some have toilet facilities, I think this allows them to prolong the experience of sitting looking at paintings and reading their car manuals.