James Salter

HoleWatch 6: Tarmageddon

Wahoo! Tarmac! As of 4:30pm today:

I’d love to think that was the end of it now, but sadly I think that’s a bit optimistic. For a start, they’ve left their barriers behind:

Obviously the tarmac department isn’t the same as the barrier department at Transco. If the tarmac guys were forced to touch the barrier guy’s barriers then that would probably necessitate industrial action. To abuse a Carry On quote: “You can’t have a tarmac guy doing a barrier guy’s job - everybody out!”

Edit: Just realised - they’ve taken away some of the barriers. But why take only some of the barriers, and leave some behind? Do Transco think we’d want them as a thank you gift?

HoleWatch 5

Sorry for the lack of hole-related updates There’s still no news on the tarmac front.

Excitingly though, Dad almost got his car stuck in the hole when he drove over the boards covering it and one of them cracked. Thankfully the board slipped under the wheel so he was able to drive out. Otherwise that could have taken some explaining if/when the Transco men finally come back.

HoleWatch 4

Very quick hole update: The men from the gas company were supposed to come to lay tarmac over the hole today, but haven’t turned up. We were supposed to be getting a phone call from a manager to explain why, but guess what … we’re still waiting.

Transco: great at digging holes, not so great at filling them in

HoleWatch 3

I won’t beat about the bush because I know you’ve all been desperate for an update on our hole. No mutant ducks or other miscellaneous creatures have emerged so far, but here are the latest pictures:

The hole with some boards over it so we can drive in and out - it’s a bit like having our own drawbridge
They’ve actually fixed the leak now and started filling in

It still hasn’t been filled to the top and finished off though

This is written on the edge of one of the signs

More hole news soon … I just hope Big Brother won’t be a letdown after the hole-related excitement!

HoleWatch: Hole update

Time for an update on our hole. It’s now got bigger and deeper:

The hole now stretches across our drive again

Some interesting signs

Going deeper underground

I think some of the neighbours are getting a bit worried with my fascination for taking pictures of our hole…

HoleWatch: Our Hole

I’ve realised I haven’t yet mentioned our hole.

We’ve had a gas leak outside our house for the last couple of years. It’s not too serious, but you can smell a faint gas-type smell occasionally. Anyway, we finally got around to phoning British Gas this week. They came around almost straight away, dug a big hole in our drive, and left.

They came back just now to shift some earth around and modify the size of the hole so we can get cars in and out. I guess they’ll be back next week to change it about again.

Anyway, I’m very proud of our hole. It makes me feel very special. Nobody else in our road has their own hole outside their house. It’s not just a hole either. We have a little fence around it too.

I thought everybody would like to see our hole, so here you are:

Our hole, as it is tonight - a bit smaller than its been all week
A close-up of the inside of our hole (the green pipe is ntl’s)

Look - there’s a hole in our ntl pipe that’s in our hole. A hole in a hole! I just hope my broadband bandwidth doesn’t leak out of it

Tell me you’re not excited about our hole too! I’m very tempted to set up a sequel to SnowCam … how about a HoleCam??