Portmarnock Traffic

I decided to walk down to Portmarnock yesterday morning, although it was raining, to post a letter. As it happened, the rain petered out shortly after I left. As I turned off of Station Road, at the roundabout, and into the village road, I saw the traffic going into Portmarnock was stopped, apparently as far as the filling station, while there was no traffic coming from Portmarnock. There was no activity, nobody was sounding their horns, nor was anyone agitatedly trying to see what was going on. As I approached the filling station I saw some ducks on the sidewalk in front of me, and when I actually reached the station I saw that the same group of female ducks about which I spoke some time ago, perhaps 150, were crossing over to the filling station. They were coming out of the field, through a break in the wall, walking in single file, and were completely oblivious to the traffic, which seemed quite content to wait.
I went on my way, the traffic began to pass regularly I posted my letter, and started back home. After a while I noticed that the traffic had stalled again. When I approached the filling station, I found that there had been a change: the ducks had now reversed themselves and were walking back across the road.