I used to have to drive all over North Devon for work, but now I don't. Instead I drive just one particular stretch of road most days and, as a consequence, I've got to know it pretty well. I travel along part of the A39 between Bideford and Barnstaple and it is very familiar to me, which is how I noticed the man in the red Renault Laguna estate. Most days, in the lay-bys closest to the Barnstaple end of the Torridge Bridge (on both sides of the road) you will see him. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to which lay-by he chooses, but it is rare for him not to be there. I think he could be living in his car.
I told my significant other about this and she suggested that as we were driving along the A39 at the time we should see if he was parked up and take a look. He was there, in the lay-by on the Bideford-bound side of the road, but he was facing towards Barnstaple - maybe he wanted the sun. We stopped our car opposite his and looked at him, and he looked at us. If we were not going to initiate a conversation there didn't seem much more we could do, so we carried on with our journey. I noticed that the rear window of his car was missing and the back door was dented.
So for the time being the man in the red Renault Laguna estate remains something of a mystery. I suppose I might just be intolerably nosy, but why people do things fascinates me, and I can't begin to understand why a person would spend so much time sitting in their car in one of two lay-bys. I first noticed him about a month ago and it has become impossible for me not to glance up at the lay-bys as I drive by. Nine times out of ten (an entirely unscientific assertion) I would say he was there. But why?
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