Just stuff

Well I've got to start with the weather haven't I - 90mph gusts, snow in Scotland, major flooding! We haven't seen this type of weather since oo last year? Even closer then that. Oh and of course the railways are going to be running at reduced capacity, yep a good dependable public transport system; reminds me of something I heard yesterday regarding banks and loans

"Banks are like the sort of people who lend you an umbrella when it's sunny and demand it back as soon as it starts raining"

As soon as the weather gets bad and you really need it the buses, trains, and planes stop running. Heard that the ferries were still going though. So feel free to head to Ireland or France.
(Update: The voice has just told me that the ferries have stopped running too, damn the weather must be bad)

To be honest it's not been to bad around here, as I may have mentioned we're kind of sheltered a lot of weather simply scoots over us, unfortunately when it does settle it's got nowhere to go. The rivers are still up I noticed the Stour was quite high, no pictures yet but watch this space.

As mentioned traffic's been awful lately, the lights on the bridge had a fun turn this morning, traffic coming from town streaming through and our side turned green, by the time we could get through only two cars made it before they went back to red. Now I thought that was what the sensor cameras on the lights were meant to prevent?

The work crews seem to have started re-laying the road, so no doubt they'll be switching lanes later. Don't know what they've been doing though, they removed the entire top layer to expose the framework as seen here and then appeared to have looked at it for several weeks before starting to cover it back up. Now they might have been relocating services that are under the footways so that they're under the bridge itself. Not sure why they'd want to do that. Oh and yes and as I predicted a pothole has formed in the only open lane on the bridge - yay!

Now remember they've also got to resurface the road from the Old Beams junction up to the High Street junction, shown in yellow (which can only be done one lane at a time); repair and replace castings; install cast-iron kerbing; and paint essentially the entire bridge. So far they're still working on the bit in red (where they started). They've still got the other lane, the resurfacing, the castings, the kerbs, and the painting left. It's taken nearly three months to do the bit in red. Now there should be less work in the other lane (no need to move services) so I'll be generous and say they can do that in a month, another month for resurfacing and kerbing and a month for painting. Might be done by April, any longer and we're really hitting tourist season. Oops almost forget, as mentioned elsewhere the plan was they were going to start in August, this got pushed to September and then October so technically we're three months behind to start with.

Up to date information can still be found here <snigger>. If you've got a time machine then you've still got a chance to have your say on the new colour scheme. The review date is scheduled for April so they're obviously running to the same timetable I've mapped out.

As I've been a bit under-the-weather as a purely unselfish gesture I've been keeping my germs to myself. Combined with a lowering of IQ that means TV. Damn there's not been much on this week. "Ugly Betty"'s vaguely amusing, but oh so predictable. The Crystal Maze still amuses, but day after day it can get tiring. Fortunately I still got stuff from the holiday period on my PVR and a few of the good things from More4 and BBC4 "Enron: Smartest guys in the room" was good, but too short (I'd prefer something along the lines of "The Corporation"); a nice little show on Californian politics, which was interesting and informative; and "A Nightmare before Christmas", which was a lot shorter then I recall. "Mortgaged to the Yanks" confirms so much about our 'special relationship' (summed up in Spooks as "We tell you to do something and then you do it") and I followed that with "The Lost Gospels" and the "Gospel of Judas", which were a little information-lite and reminded me a little of the modern take on "Horizon", but not quite as bad.

Postscript: A voice has just come through the door telling me they've lifted the hose-pipe ban down South, so everyone can go out and water the garden now... that is if it's not flooded or blown away.