Monday 4 January 2010

A ratepayer's whinge



As you can see from this shot of the dog charging purposefully home to her warm house, we in Bacteria Gardens live on a steepish hill. Many of us have been unable to move our cars for days now without sliding helplessly in unwanted directions, terrified of bumping into neighbours' parked cars.

There is a junction (also solidly iced-over) at the bottom of the hill, then this:




If you don't manage to come to a halt at the kerb across the junction, you can find yourself rolling/sliding sideways down this hill and possibly into the river if you don't hit a tree first -  just like the wilder teenagers on toboggans, the difference being that they do it for laughs. At the corner of the estate is a tower block of apartments reserved for older people.

Today, for the first time, the council gritting wagon drove up and down twice, spreading salt and grit on the thick, lumpy, iced-up road surface. Let's see if it makes any difference at this late stage; continuing sub-zero temperatures and more snow are forecast all week.

Just wait till those local councillors come canvassing at election time! We have long memories round here.

6 comments:

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Yes , the charm has totally worn off .And still it ***** snows .
Surely everyone who wanted to build a snowman has done it by now ?
I must say this is one time Holland's total flatness appeals ....looking at your hill , I sigh with relief that our challenge isn't perpendicular too !

Fran Hill said...

Suddenly, the title of your blog looks extremely relevant ...

BumbleVee said...

gee looks like home to me... but...we are more prepared for it of course... as it's like this for many months round here. Our "sanding trucks" ...as we call them... came by the other day while I was out shoveling.. I wave at them all......

We live on a small crescent... so... they are everywhere, man.... even in a city of one million.... still... some of the hilly areas are never great for weeks to months at a time... lots of cars parked at the bottom and some hiking up is their exercise ....

little Tosca looks so tiny in the new header pic..... a lovely shot.....

mountainear said...

Yes, working on a long memory round here too.

Feel like an itsy rant: live at the bottom of an (adopted) very rural lane. No street lights (actually glad about that one), no bins or door step recycling - take it all to the top of the lane to have manky bags gnawed by wild beasts or take it ourselves to the tip. No kids ergo no school. Police presence - zero. Anticipated police response time if needed? In excess of an hour if lucky.

Ask at the gates of the highways yard for a bucket (A BUCKET, A SINGLE BUCKET I ask you!!!) of grit to spread for ourselves on our lane of solid ice and what do we get? Zilch, nada, nowt.

Plentya council tax to pay though.

Just let the b*stards come begging at election time. Ha!

Gosh, I am riled aren't I?

rachel said...

S & S: Such a poor standard of snowman round here this year. Last year a very jolly naked snowlady appeared by the side of the road.

Fran: I might change the blog's name to Housebound in Suburbia, or some such.

Vee: how do you stay sane if snow lasts for months? A couple of weeks is all we can stand.

Mountainear:If it's any comfort, Lesley down the road rang the (city) police a few weeks ago to report a man wearing black clothing, incl. gloves, climbing over a yard wall at night. Police control room told her there would be a response in an hour.....

And all our roadside grit bins are empty - not that we have any at all round here; my friend told me.

And instead of wild beasts, we have furtive teams of strangers wielding Stanley knives, slashing and ransacking the bin bags inside our wheelie bins in the small hours before refuse collection each week. Apparently, it is well worth their while, given how wasteful our students are.

Grrrrr. Just Grrrr......

Linda said...

Fed up now! Burst pipe outside. It's still exposed thanks to unfinished building work.
Will this winter never end?????

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