Roadworks

     Local readers will be all too aware that Edinburgh is being comprehensively dug up just now. Roads are closed, buses diverted, chaos rules, and it's pretty much true - as in the famous Irish saying - that no matter where you want to go, 'you can't get there from here'!
     We have it on our doorstep, too, as every night from 6.00, they close the road outside our house to allow for resurfacing work. I wish I could adequately describe the scene as we watched it last night. Vast machines like giant dinosaurs line up, their many lights flashing, and then they start to move and the noise is incredible. They are effectively chewing up the tarmac and spitting it out - a great hulking beast strips the road surface down to the old cobbles, pulverises it and shoots it into the hopper of the machine in front, then a smoking devil's brew of blackstuff is mixed and spread and rolled as they lay down a fresh surface. The whole house shakes while this is going on, glassware trembles, vases threaten to inch off mantelpieces, the television volume has to be notched up several degrees, and then we go to bed and try to sleep!
     As I write this (11.00am) all is quiet and the men are gone; traffic is light but parking suspended to allow for their return under cover of darkness. Later they will come, a small army caparisoned in fluorescent jackets, ear protectors and hard hats, erecting barricades so that hapless pedestrians don't stray into the paths of their chargers, mounting their apocalyptic steeds to get to work again.
   The thing is, the road surface was actually perfectly alright before. The neighbouring street is in a very bad way, having craters to rival the surface of the moon, but ours was fine. Have they made a mistake? I did read a report of some road-mending elsewhere in the city: a bloke shovelled some hardcore into the pothole, got into his van and reversed over it to tamp it down, then drove away, so maybe we should be glad our crew are doing a proper job, but will our house still be standing when they're done?

Comments

[Rebecca]

Oh Karen, how horrid that they do this at night, I think I would be seething. The main road through North Wales which I have no choice but to use on a regular basis, is frequently decorated with long lines of traffic cones, reducing traffic to one, slow, lane and regularly punctuated by temporary traffic lights. If only there were half as many work men as there are cones? It is so rare to actually see any work taking place!

I hope your road regains peacefulness soon.

[Terri - teelgee]

I have great compassion for you, putting up with all that noise and mess. Your description is spot on! It seems odd they'd do it at night in a residential area. Are they going to reimburse all your lost hours of sleep??

[Pamela]

Does it really go on all night?? Edward would be howling!

[Livvey K]

I can sympathise as when I returned home to Edinburgh after Christmas, the entire road was cordoned off with plastic barriers and there was a massive trench running from one end of the road to the other. Thankfully they didn't work during the night though otherwise I might have had a breakdown!