The Hole In The Ground

Ever think perhaps you shouldn’t have started something? About a month ago I was trying to renew my broadband contract and was talked into a full fibre upgrade for not much more money. I naively assumed I’d just get a fancy new router or something and that would be all there was to it.
The first hint there may be more to it than that was a week later when Openreach turned up to do a site survey, as a new cable was required to be laid up to the property. Various discussions about burying it in the flowerbed or running it down the drive but no firm conclusion. Today, I came home from the gym to find two engineers and two vans parked up, ready to lay the cable. Except my idea of just slinging it down the side of the drive in a bit of trunking was a non-starter. It would be a trip hazard apparently, no matter how close it was to the garden wall! Some talk of running it across my neighbour’s property but I wasn’t keen, even though she was not bothered. I just worry that if it needed attention in the future and we had a different neighbour, they might not be too chuffed at having their front garden dug up!
So we settled on the nuclear option of a trench being dug from the pavement to the house. Initially they thought it would be done over two days, but the arrival of two more lads (and two more vans) meant it was all done this afternoon, albeit the final bit of tarmacing was done in the dark. I asked if I could take a picture and was told yes, as long as I showed they had put up all the necessary barriers to protect me from falling in the 6” deep trench. Apparently, their boss is a real health and safety nut and would give them a right bollocking if he thought they hadn’t put all the appropriate measures in place. It seems you can’t just be trusted to be a responsible adult and not go anywhere near the hole until it’s all filled in again.
It does seem though that there is now not the urgency we thought there might be as I’ve just had an email saying they’ve put the install date back from next week to the middle of January. Oh well, at least the groundwork is now complete so it doesn’t matter even if they do turn up early.