Personal

Baby-sitting a wall

Here's the reason I worked from home today.

I've been working, but also distracted by the variety of road-eating machines marching up and down Chapel Street. They belched menacingly at my garden wall, threatening it with destruction.

The workmen scraped back the road surface in the morning and pneumatic-drilled the drains. I breathed a sigh of relief at lunchtime, convinced the worst of the vibrations were out of the way. But for some reason I'd forgotten the new surface needed to be rolled flat. The past hour has been tense, with every building in the lane shuddering as the rollers pass.

Everything's quiet now; it's all over and my wall is still standing. I've never been so proud of an inanimate object.

The feeling lasted all of five minutes. Vicky and I are off to the pub to complete the planning application that will eventually see the wall disappear through our own scheme. (My loyalty to some old bricks and mortar clearly isn't a thing to be counted on.)