The winter snow has finally arrived, along with some heavy frosts and clear skies.
The unusually wet winter we’d been experiencing up to now caused some problems, even locally. One appeared a few weeks ago, when we noticed a long crack had opened up at the edge of the road in front of our house.
The bank, owned by the local City Council, had started to move downhill, pushing on the retaining wall and cottage below. That was of real concern, especially because that cottage is important, perhaps 150 years old and one of the first three houses on our hill. Then, yesterday, things started to happen. The bank had slipped even further and action was urgently required. A large digger appeared (a great excuse to dodge the chores I had for that morning).
It very quickly and neatly removed the offending bank:
So the immediate danger to the cottage has passed. Everyone, apart from the local Council, is much happier as you can see from this collection of homeowners. (Is the collective noun a “pride” of homeowners, I wonder?)
Trouble is, our car park has gone, for some time I guess while a decision is made on how the road can be stabilised. Our usually rather narrow road is now even narrower, down to a skinny one lane.
So watch this space for the next stage, which I suspect may be very expensive and with a bit of luck might even involve huge machines for drilling into cliffs!
PS Sorry about the highly misleading title, but I couldn’t resist it!
Graeme, as you are so very good at sussing out City Council manouvres/earth moving I wonder if you know what is happening on the roadside at the “bottom” of our place (ie Hugh Gray’s section, which seems to have quite dramatically slipped down onto Rocks Rd – well, part of it)? That is the area just north of Basin Reserve. Charles Hufflett’s house looms over it too.