They must be joking!!

Unbelievable!!

Since January there have been road works on the motorway between the small market town where I live and The City.

When I returned to work after my week off I was surprised to discover that the speed restrictions had been lifted. It has taken a while to get back to driving at normal speed along this stretch of the motorway. I guess us drivers have become conditioned to drive at 50mph for that stretch of road. But now I am finding that the rushour traffic is moving along better. Not long after I had passed the main junction for my town the one where the road works had begun, I noticed that the fourth lane is now open and we are merrily speeding towards the city.

But someone must be having a joke at our expense. No sooner have we begun to enjoy the freedom of not only having 4 lanes to spread across but no speed restrictions when bam!!!

Brake lights flash on and stay on as car after car, van and lorry after van and lorry skids almost to a stop. The new found freedom of 4 lanes has been taken away from us already. Four lanes are condensing to 3 lanes again, with traffic trying to shift from one lane to another.

To my horror this is not occurring on my left but on my right. It is the fast lane that comes to an end. So there we are the two 'fast' lanes crawling along to acommodate two files of vehicles in one lane, whilst the two 'slower' lanes are speeding past us.

Whose lunatic idea was that!!!

Who wants to cause accidents on top of a hill midway between two very busy junctions. Is this some mad man's idea of traffic calming?

I don't know how long it will be before there is an horrific accident................. Not long I shouldn't think.

My bet is that the person who dreampt up this scheme received a pat on the back and a big payout as a reward. What he should have got was a straight jacket and a padded cell.

How many deaths will there be on that stretch of road. Ok so we have done the drive once now and tomorrow we will be better prepared, but that is only those of us who travel that road regularly, what happens when a speed freak from out of the area goes bombing along and has to brake suddenly because they run out of road.

Going back home I had another surprise. For months there has been one sign before the start of the westward roadworks announcing that a climbing lane will open in Autumn 2008. Now I may not be the brightest button in the tin but to me climbing lane means a lane for the really slow vehicles going up the hill. The slow lane, am I right or am I right. Ok so I am driving along at between 70 and 80mph uphill, still only three lanes all the way until near the top a fourth lane opens out .................on my right!!! the fast lane just became the fasr lane and the extra fast lane. But what is this ?

Oh yes they have brought us back down to 3 lanes again after just a couple of hundred yards, what was the point?

We have endured months of disruption while they widen the road to four lanes for a couple of hundred yards and not even as you go up the hill, where a slow lane is needed but when you are near the top and starting to level out again.

I think I am going to be sticking to the middle lane from now on, no more using the fast lane for over taking , I shall be too worried about running out of road before I manage to get back across.

Does anyone know of similar road schemes and if so how have they worked out?

I don't predict my journey to and from work will improve. If anything I feel it will get worse.

Oh and why do they need a climbing lane for the traffic going down hill, not only that but the extra lane is on the flatter part of the hill???

Rant over

shock horror

Tonight DC quit from the band that he built up from the age of 12

They started out as a 4 piece band, he was lead guitar but also did some of the singing until his voice began to break. For a while they became a 5 piece band, at this point 8 years later there have been a few changes in band members but DC was one of only two original band members left. DC has always enjoyed not only the taking part in playing. But also the designing of CD covers, badges and T-Shirts. Right from the start he was the driving force behind the band, arranging gigs, recording etc. He has written a lot of the music and lyrics for the songs they sang, they have never been interested in doing covers.

So this is the end of an era or is it.

Will he stick to his guns or will he miss what has been the most important part of his life for the last 8 years (other than his g/f of 4.5 years).

From what he was saying on Monday he wants to concentrate more on his art work than his music.

DC jumped

Things at work have not been improving with NL. After 2 months he is not improving, it seems to be one step forward two steps backwards. I have not been tearing my hair out so much in recent weeks because I have not allowed myself to become stressed. However Boss Lady has been getting increasingly frustrated with him. It is looking very likely that he won't be there in a month's time. The question is will he jump or be pushed.

There is a woman (Ruby) in the accounts department who I have never mentioned before. She works part time, has been there since March and is currently on her second job as she did not get on very well in the first. I had heard rumours about her (I don't know much about her ) but yesterday I heard this noise. It was a noise I recognised but didn't think anything of at the time even though it is not something I have ever heard before during a working day. There was a slight commotion at the other end of the office and NL began to giggle. Being slightly deaf I asked him what he was laughing at. Apparently Ruby had fallen asleep and begun to snore. Since then I have noticed several times that one or other of the accounts staff have had to wake her.

'Ruby .......you went again'

has been heard at intevals throughout the day. I have also heard that she fell asleep in the ladies toilets yesterday. Her boss PB has been getting fed up with her inability to learn her job, added to this falling asleep, I wonder how long it will be before she either jumps or is pushed.

As from today I have started leaving work at 4.30 instead of 5pm, (not before time according to Boss Lady). But the reason I left on time today and will do tomorrow and for how ever long it takes has nothing to do with work or even family. My daily drive home generally takes me around 30 to 35 minutes unless there are any traffic problems. Yesterday it took the usual 30 minutes to get as far as my town. I joined the queue of traffic on the hill waiting for the lights at the top, But I soon realised that we had been stationary for too long. As I watched, it became evident that traffic was not progressing along the road I would be turning into at the top, for the last 2 miles of my drive home. Eventually we began to crawl along, taking 40 minutes to drive the last 2 miles. What had caused this traffic problem I wondered as we kept creeping ever nearer to my home. All became clear as I reached the shopping precinct about 500m from the turning towards my home. Temporary traffic lights at the junction beside the place where they recently pulled down the pub SF used to frequent.

Traffic lights for some 'Essential Gas works' .....................it must have been a huge hole in the road to cause such problems.........but hang on I didn't pass any holes in the road...........WTF was that all about. Later I went to ASDA and noticed that it is in fact 3 way traffic lights, it isn't the main road that is being dug up but the side road. This side road is not overly busy, plus it is easily accessible from the road I use to get to my home. However the main road ..............without any holes being dug...............was being held up by these lights ..............in the rush hour for what reason!!!!! So because of these lights it took me 1hr 10 mins to get home yesterday (PB left after me and took 1hr 25 mins to get home). Today we both left work earlier. Today I got past the hill, the lights at the top, the road along the back of the town that overlooks the Motorway far below. Turned into the main road heading towards home, as I reached a bend in the road about 200 yrds on I joined the back of the traffic. It was 5.02pm I got home (little over 1/2 mile further) at 5.25pm grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

If only there was another way home, of only there was any road I could take to avoid these road works, unfortunately there is not. There are three roads into town and at that time of night both the other two are very bad day in day out, so there is no way to avoid getting stuck.