The Mole

On Tuesday the supervisor from German Telecom (the main contractor) turned up with the capo from the subcontractors to start work & discuss where the cable/box would be placed in the house. The deal is they put it where you want it but only directly on the wall where it enters the building. Rest is then our problem/cost.

Ended up having a good old bust-up. Supervisor trying to take the easy way out at above ground level & I insisting it went into the cellar. He started threatening with "it's your responsibility if we .... and you must sign .....". I refused on all counts and stormed off, Angie trying to keep the peace & agreeing to place it where we would have great problems & costs wiring it up internally.

However, I could read the face of the subcontractor & last two days have built up a good relationship. He has agreed to do it my way and without me signing anything. He also dislikes the, in his words, arrogant, opinionated Telecom man.

It took a bit of care - there are several electrical cables to a 10,000 litre (disused) oil tank buried just next to the right of the trench in the photo, other 'normal' electricity cables into the garden, the telephone line, the sewage outlet to the cesspit under the path on the right and at least one mains water pipe running across the trench which I knew about. 99.9% of all electricity/water/phone cables on the property are not shown on maps. Although the oil tank was officially decommissioned and cleaned with all certificates needed for authorities, there was a minimal chance of damaging it. Any sign of an oil spill in Germany is a very expensive matter.

Trench was dug very carefully with the digger and went without a hitch. At the point the Telecom man turned up and saw it. He went into a full rage and stormed off. I followed him and asked him for his name & business card and returned to the house. Unexpectedly he followed me back with a special bit of kit needed for the cellar wall hole and then even went on to tell the capo to leave enough spare cable to fit the box of tricks somewhere above ground level. THANK GOODNESS.

He left & the tricky part started. Drilled a 5cm  hole through the 48cm thick cellar wall - it looked for a minute as though they wouldn't have a long enough drill! The hole has to be done at more or less a right angle but we needed the "rocket" that then gets fired through the earth to the trench to go at an angle. A few minutes of holding breath that a) the rocket came out in the trench and b) no wires/cables/pipework got in the way.

And it worked, even if just. Success and we all sighed a very deep breath of relief. Then the rocket was again set in motion to go under the driveway. That was a much closer thing - it had come up against something very hard & been deflected upwards surfacing much too early where there was a known electricity cable. Luckily though all OK. Not ideal but safe.

Don't think I need to document my feelings as I watched UK TV in the evening. I had been banned from Twitter a couple of hours before the polling stations closed & was too proud to detract my comment until after it was clear what had happened. Strangely my ban was not really justified - I should have dropped two letters & replaced them with *s. The recipient - a racist should have been banned. He/she hadn't complained, I was simply caught out by an automatic Twitter checker.