The heat is on

As I’m writing this, there is a bobcat (of the mechanical, not wildlife kind) working outside my window. I could reach out and touch the head of the driver had I any desire to do so. It is loud and distracting, but very cheering. For the first time, the stumping crew has worked two consecutive days on the house and they are pretty much finished. The bobcat is being used to remove the steel I-beams and pyramids that were used to temporarily support the house. We have sacrificed one concrete path, several branches of frangipani and one struggling gardenia. Not too bad for a major building project. Oops, and a dent in the front steps. If someone is at their window, a good policy would be to not yell obscenities about hitting the steps.

The driveway on the other hand is a mess. The work crew seem to be of the opinion that if they just hit the hill fast enough, one day they will succeed in getting to the top. My cheery neighbour insists though, that we not get the driveway fixed as watching people tackle it provides so much entertainment for him. Skittering from bump to hillock to skid track on the gravel today I was dreaming of a nice sealed driveway, perhaps lined with trees and bowing servants.

I was returning home from a meeting about the website – yes that website, the one that we’ve been working on for over a year with nothing to show for it. I went into this meeting believing that it was going to be a post-mortem and funeral for the whole idea. The good news (I think) is that we will probably be going ahead with it. We came to a tentative agreement over projected costs and have a Saturday meeting scheduled with a web designer. It was a situation where the committee members worked out that we weren’t on the same page and managed somehow to meet. As all of them are dedicated readers of this blog I have to say here that the success of the meeting was only because of their intelligence and charm.

And this is where the heat got turned on. Website aside, I found out that there was general dissatisfaction over my lack of recent blogging. Even people’s fathers had been complaining. Moreover, the content came in for some critique with preferences expressed for local description and gossip over serious historical content. I’m tempted to retaliate by turning this into a purely historical literary blog, but I might lose my entire readership.

Then there was the discussion over the garbage collection on our road and blame laid at my door for the carbon footprint and general environmental vandalism of weekly garbage collection (and even worse, recycling collection). Apparently no-one had their garbage collected before we moved here and started the trend.

I’ve suggested that we start the Marburg Curmudgeon Club. After going home and Googling the word, at least one of us is now wearing the label with pride.