Fuming on a Sunday afternoon
What a day it was for stripping wallpaper!
We're in the middle of redecorating our five-year-old's bedroom and, let's face it, there is no good day for it.
If it's glorious sunshine - like this morning - you resent being stuck inside with the stench of paint fumes and old wallpaper glue.
If it's torrential rain - like this evening - you're just resentful on general principles. And you're even more resentful when you manage to waste the entire afternoon and get nothing done.
In fairness, some of this was our own fault. First, we set off into town for a work break to buy wallpaper in Noblett's - without first checking Noblett's was open. It was not.
Then we faffed about and had coffee. But the kicker was when we headed off towards the Sydenham Bypass, intending to go to B&Q to pick up all the things we needed in one fell swoop.
It was only when we were about to travel onto the M3 onslip that we saw the first road sign - the one indicating that the onslip was closed and pointing us back into town. Turns out bridge repairs are being carried out on the M3 Lagan Bridge over a series of weekends.
A delightful surprise and one that would have been completely ruined if we had been given prior warning at, say, Frederick Street. Why, we might have kept going along the Dunbar Link, instead of becoming completely and unnecessarily snarled up in a traffic jam as we very slowly edged round in a wide circle - eventually bringing us back to the Dunbar Link.
After this, we enjoyed a relaxing half an hour of moving along at snail's pace, occasionally attempting to transfer into the right hand lane, before finally crossing the Queen's Bridge and making our break for freedom.
The frustrating thing was that it was Sunday afternoon and yet we were stuck in traffic jams that were worse than many a weekday rush hour.
I've talked to roads enthusiast Wesley Johnston many times about what is wrong with this city and why it grinds to a halt every time there is an accident at rush hour. He says the fundamental problem is that Belfast's road network runs well over capacity at rush hour.
He says TransportNI has a sophisticated traffic light control system that constantly tweaks the signals, and that improves the situation to a surprising degree - yet doesn't solve the underlying capacity problem.
One solution would be to build more roads, but this cannot be sustained without building roads so wide that it would involve demolishing large parts of the city.
Instead, the Government now focuses on the more modest goals of removing key bottlenecks, with increasing efforts to try to get people to switch to the train, the bus, the bicycle, or foot.
So I know that as car users we are contributing to the congestion and we should really be trying to use a greener method of transport. In my defence, we were collecting rolls of wallpaper, long pieces of wood and various other decorating accoutrements while wrangling a small child.
But really, should the traffic have been at a standstill, in Belfast, on a Sunday, when no-one had had an accident?
The traffic control was abysmal. We could have avoided a long, slow unnecessary circuit if the work team had just put up a few more warning signs, giving us the chance to take an alternative route earlier.
We can't have been the only Sunday afternoon shoppers fuming away in our cars and swearing we would never go back.
Oh Belfast, you just don't help yourself, do you?
We're in the middle of redecorating our five-year-old's bedroom and, let's face it, there is no good day for it.
If it's glorious sunshine - like this morning - you resent being stuck inside with the stench of paint fumes and old wallpaper glue.
If it's torrential rain - like this evening - you're just resentful on general principles. And you're even more resentful when you manage to waste the entire afternoon and get nothing done.
In fairness, some of this was our own fault. First, we set off into town for a work break to buy wallpaper in Noblett's - without first checking Noblett's was open. It was not.
Then we faffed about and had coffee. But the kicker was when we headed off towards the Sydenham Bypass, intending to go to B&Q to pick up all the things we needed in one fell swoop.
It was only when we were about to travel onto the M3 onslip that we saw the first road sign - the one indicating that the onslip was closed and pointing us back into town. Turns out bridge repairs are being carried out on the M3 Lagan Bridge over a series of weekends.
A delightful surprise and one that would have been completely ruined if we had been given prior warning at, say, Frederick Street. Why, we might have kept going along the Dunbar Link, instead of becoming completely and unnecessarily snarled up in a traffic jam as we very slowly edged round in a wide circle - eventually bringing us back to the Dunbar Link.
After this, we enjoyed a relaxing half an hour of moving along at snail's pace, occasionally attempting to transfer into the right hand lane, before finally crossing the Queen's Bridge and making our break for freedom.
The frustrating thing was that it was Sunday afternoon and yet we were stuck in traffic jams that were worse than many a weekday rush hour.
I've talked to roads enthusiast Wesley Johnston many times about what is wrong with this city and why it grinds to a halt every time there is an accident at rush hour. He says the fundamental problem is that Belfast's road network runs well over capacity at rush hour.
He says TransportNI has a sophisticated traffic light control system that constantly tweaks the signals, and that improves the situation to a surprising degree - yet doesn't solve the underlying capacity problem.
One solution would be to build more roads, but this cannot be sustained without building roads so wide that it would involve demolishing large parts of the city.
Instead, the Government now focuses on the more modest goals of removing key bottlenecks, with increasing efforts to try to get people to switch to the train, the bus, the bicycle, or foot.
So I know that as car users we are contributing to the congestion and we should really be trying to use a greener method of transport. In my defence, we were collecting rolls of wallpaper, long pieces of wood and various other decorating accoutrements while wrangling a small child.
But really, should the traffic have been at a standstill, in Belfast, on a Sunday, when no-one had had an accident?
The traffic control was abysmal. We could have avoided a long, slow unnecessary circuit if the work team had just put up a few more warning signs, giving us the chance to take an alternative route earlier.
We can't have been the only Sunday afternoon shoppers fuming away in our cars and swearing we would never go back.
Oh Belfast, you just don't help yourself, do you?
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