Our house has been surrounded by road works for the past two weeks, and it’s all our own fault. Our drive is immediately behind the traffic light (taken in the dark because at this time of the year was are rarely at home in daylight)
A couple of years after we moved here the Lane was resurfaced. A couple of years ago it was resurfaced again. On each occasion the new surface was laid directly upon the previous one, and consequently the height of the low “dropped kerb” at the end of our drive was at almost at the same level as the road surface. Since the road sloped up to the junction below Croft Hill, and our drive sloped up to the road, any heavy rain, or even moderately heavy rain, caused surface water to flow off of Croft Hill and down our Lane, flowing down the gutters, as it should, and thence flowing down many of the drives, as it most certainly shouldn’t. The result was regular puddling in front of houses.
Our friend Richard suffered the worst – his was the first drive encountered by water descending from Croft Hill, and the river flooded his back garden, via his garage.
We pointed this out to the County Council, who didn’t believe us, advising us that, apparently, the height of our kerb met regulatory requirements. They undertook site visits, but they never coincided with the right sort of rain. And then summer arrived, the driest summer for a while, and everyone forgot about the puddles, just enjoying the warm sunshine instead.
As is traditional for a British Summer, the season ended with a thunderstorm, and then another thunderstorm, and then we suddenly remembered the puddles, as we swam out to the car. Three of we residents made a formal complaint to the Council, and at last the Highways Department agreed to install drains on our side of the Lane that would divert water though a gulley beneath the road into the ditch on the far side of the Lane, which has been dredged for the purpose. Hence the traffic lights as one side of the Lane is closed for gulley constructing purposes.
Driving off of the drive between the traffic lights is interesting especially in daylight when you cannot actually see the reflected colour of the controlling light. One has to shut one’s eyes, and “go for it”. A couple of mornings ago there was quite a queue of traffic waiting at “our” lights”, and the car in front kindly flashed me out he pulled away from the lights. It wasn’t until I met a couple of cars coming the other way that I realised that the lights were all stuck on red. Being a “local” I merely pulled into a neighbours drive, and out the other end, leaving the kind soul behind me who had allowed me out to meet any oncoming vehicles on his behalf, to manage the traffic management situation as best he could.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
