You can blame twitter for this one because I asked my followers if I could get away with blogging about drainage roadworks and they enthusiastically agreed. Road engineers, eh? And this on a Friday night too.
Newly dug ditch. I told you it was exciting
Anyway, the old chap and the young chap have almost finished their epic work along our road (I did notice that the young chap had got himself a proper big yellow digger last time I passed them, but the old chap was having none of it and sticking to his shovel). Not only do we have some re-dug ditches, but on the worst bit of road they have actually put in some drains and it is now dry for the first time pretty much since we moved up here.
One casualty is the permapuddle that has stretched across our drive for long enough to gain its own wildlife. They have rerouted the burn back into the pipe it is supposed to flow into, rather than across the tarmac, and today they were busy repairing the drain that the pipe flows into (be thankful that they were hanging around at lunchtime or you’d have had several more exciting pictures of drainage works to admire). It means I now no longer have anywhere to wash my wellies after I’ve been in the garden – but it also means that my bottle dynamo, which doesn’t really like going through puddles, won’t cut out the instant I leave our gate, which is a bonus.
My hope was that the application of Sod’s Law (weather perversity act) would mean that all this expensive drainage work would result in a long drought but sadly after an unprecedented three days of sunshine the Weather Gods resumed normal service this morning. Now all we have to do is see how long the roads remain dry under normal weather conditions. And if you’re really lucky, I’ll update you.
Town Mouse 
We had similar excitement last year when the council’s mini-digger was sent to repair our lake-generating drain.
This week we’ve had to make do with SBlocal filling two nasty potholes less than a week after I reported it on their website.
Ah well it’s year end isn’t it? Road mending season
If anyone can get away with blogging about drainage, it’s you 😉
Um, that ditch, and the mud they dug out of it… is that it there, piled up between the road and the ditch? No, what am I thinking… I can’t imagine anything that might cause all that mud to end up back in the bottom of that ditch.
Wow. Next thing you know, you’ll be using Oil Lamps.
The progress is astounding.
I think that’s a bit cheeky blaming fellow tweeters, myself included, for this post! xx
@Rachel – I shall take that as a compliment. I think
@Bob – I know, it’s dizzying…
@Flighty – sorry about that!!
Drains in Lucca are quite good but a very smelly one at the end of our road. Very pretty town indeed. Sorry to bang on about it but I hang around this blog so I do like to contribute….
As a cyclist you should come to Lucca. Almost no cars in town, everyone cycles or walks. Cyclists are dressed in normal clothes except mad speedy types on the road who are head to toe Lycra and dark glasses. As you cannot go fast in Luca the Lycra types are not to be seen. Walked round the walls today, very pretty and restful.
I don’t know what it says about my life that I clicked on this before any of the other blogs in my reader…
Charles – that does sound good, apart from the drains
Andy – I like to think that it says you know I’ll write sparkling prose, whatever the subject 🙂
[…] stuck with me doing the paperwork for the Errandonnee. In the excitement of Monday’s exciting drainage news I forgot to mention that I had also cycled down to Papershop Village to meet my fellow editor to […]
[…] may have mentioned, the old boy, the young guy and their big yellow digger came from the council to sort out the drainage outside our house for once and for all – thereby ushering in one of the driest summers on […]