Action-Packed Day at Todheugh

Another first of country living for us today. Scottish Water came this morning to empty the sewerage tank. It is located under our rose bed, and seemed fairly straight forward. Apparently the only real problem was a request for next time to do it after we have pruned the roses.

Partly because of the sewerage tank being emptied and partly because I overslept we reverted back to a later dog walk. I had got them ready and we went out to wait for the SW man to finish. As we were waiting a Scottish Local lorry came by - road sweeping the edge yet again. Then another smaller SB van passed by.

As we set out for the walk we could see the van parked down the track by the bridge. The lorry was coming back. We waited. It stopped. We carried on. The van went across the bridge, reversed off the road and stopped. At this point Jen dived into undergrowth, and despite having her muzzle on emerged with yet another mole. She gave it a good shaking and then dropped it. I managed to pull her away, and it made a shaky exit to the verge on the other side of the road. We continued on our walk.

When we came back there was a temporary road sign on the far side of the bridge with a 20 mph limit and 'beware of skidding', shortly followed by a 'mobile roadworks' sign. Another 'beware of skidding' one on the other side. Jen had obviously remembered the mole and suddenly pulled towards where it had last been seen. I stopped her and could not see it so it may well have survived its ordeal.

We then went food shopping - one of life's necessities but it is so much more civilised being able to avoid the weekend. When we got home there was a council worker at the bottom of the hill trying to stop us taking the road towards Edrom. As we only needed to go about 20 yards he apologised and let us through.

They appear to be doing something to the road in front of the long bank...I'm off to look.
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wibblywobbly lines as time passes
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It was like something out of Thunderbirds...Mobile roadworks was a perfect description. They have completely relayed the road surface from as far as I can see up past Margaret's and the last I saw they were heading towards the bridge.

Lorry at the front laying tar.

Lorry behind with conveyor-belt putting gravel on top of the tar.




Lorry behind loading gravel into conveyor-belt lorry.



Vehicle (no idea what it is called - a non-steam steam-roller) behind just driving up and down bedding down the new road surface.

And this is on top (literally) of all the road repairs they did at the end of May...

Road Repairs

Last week the council were out and about in the locale.

We had noticed a sign up on Monday at Edrom stating there may be delays for the following two days for road repairs.

On Tuesday our builder Alan was not best pleased when he found this actually meant delayed for the whole day as the road was completely blocked with multiple 'boys toys' vehicles - diggers and tar-laying machines and the like - halfway between Edrom and us. He had to reverse back to Edrom as there was nowhere to turn around with his trailer.

On Wednesday they had moved to the bottom of the hill at the other side of our house. Despite it being steady rain for most of that day they have replaced several large areas of road surface there. Hopefully this will last longer than the running repairs of Scottish Borders Local on the pot-holes, which are ripped apart again within days by tractors doing the 180 degree turn there from the bridge.

Over the last couple of days we have heard/seen a large yellow vehicle coming along slowly. It appears to have given the verges nice crisp edges, reclaiming a fair amount of road from the encroaching mud, 'wild flowers' and grass, flattened a foot or so of the aforesaid flora from the roadside and thrown the debris back onto the verges.

After the rain of yesterday the verges are decidedly dirty, as was Jen after this mornings walk - hippopotamus impersonation after rolling around in the long grass to cool down.