The Worst Workmen

For the past goodness knows how long, I have had workmen attacking the road outside my house and I'm convinced they are some of the worst workmen in the history of workmen. Not that I have extensive knowledge of workmen or their history but to be honest these workmen as so bad that I fell my claim is justified.

I will start at the most logical point: the beginning. Around a week before the Easter holidays began, a row of cones and some traffic lights appeared outside the row of houses where I live. Literally just a row of cones, no workmen, no holes in the road, nothing. This row of cones was made even worse by the fact that these cones remained there for another day or so without any signs of work starting. Well, unless you count a couple of workmen using the coned off area as a car park whilst standing around talking because I don't.

Eventually, the work started. Well, when I say work, the progress didn't improve much. Almost every time I looked out the window or went past the roadworks on my way to and from the house, there was no work going on. In the first few weeks of roadworks, it seemed like hardly anything got done and if they were not on a break then the moon was probably blue. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but it certainly felt like it.

You may be aware that I've been using the past tense quite a bit. Well, they have improved a bit since they started. Possibly because the people have changed, possibly because they're not going to meet their deadline (what other reason would they be working on a Saturday?!) However, they did get worse before they got better...

How did they get worse?! I hear you cry. Well, I'd say getting a dump truck stuck in the ditch is a pretty good definition of worse. I have absolutely no idea how they managed it as there is quite a bit of path and verge between the ditch and the roadworks however, for a good couple of days, the view from my sister's bedroom window included said dump truck sitting head first in a ditch.

My mum also reports of other atrocities: blocking a rather major road with a big lorry so there are rows of traffic winding back down the road, drivers beeping horns in frustration; workmen deciding that the best way to removed the dump truck from the ditch is to dig under the wheel; and malfunctioning lights. The latest development being that there are a couple of girls who always seem to be sitting next to the traffic lights, their purpose not fully know. It could be that they're controlling the lights however as the lights function perfectly well at night, I'm not quite sure how this could be the case.

To be honest, most of this doesn't really bother me, the thing that really bothers me is that it is basically impossible to reverse into our drive. First, you have to avoid the cones in the middle of the road which is doable but the biggest problem is trying to avoid the cars behind you. So often the cars decided that pulling up behind you as close as possible, despite the fact that you are clearly indicating to reverse in and there is no other way for them to get past apart from waiting for me to move. The number of times I've almost hit the car behind because they're haven't left me enough room is frustrating.

Almost two months since they started, the road works have moved so our house is no longer in the middle of the roadworks. Instead, we're in the equally frustrating position of half way between the traffic lights and the "when red light shows wait here" sign. On the plus side, we can see which end has the green light. On the down side, people are so much more impatient and I've resorted to the "pull up on the verge outside our house and wait for a quite patch to awkwardly reverse in" approach. Not the most favorable approach but I guess it'll do for now.

I'm sorry this has been a bit of a moany post, hopefully revision procrastination will make a more interesting post next time!

DFTBA

Two truth's one lie:

1) I once continued to run around the playground whilst wetting myself in about year three, leaving a "lovely" wet trail behind me...
2) I slipped whilst playing 40 40 home once leading to a very slight chip in one of my teeth. So slight you can barely see it.
3) I once dressed up as Pippi Longstocking for world book day.

And the answer to last week? Number 1 is the lie. I went to a couple of maths challenges in primary school and one of them did involve running about to pick up and give in answers however I didn't trip over. Or cry at all during the day for that matter.