The Bard's Fire

Back on March 22nd, the denizens of HarpHaven found ourselves, with all of half-a-nanosecond warning, watching big honkin’ implements of destruction tearing up a portion of our front walkway and leaving a hole in which one could conveniently hide a classic VW bug. (See entry for March 25: When City Contractors Attack.) The work in the neighborhood was supposed to be concluded by March 31st. You know where this is going.

Weather plays a big part in construction timelines, so I can’t entirely blame the contractor. Storms, some of them right nasty, have been a regular occurrence in the last several weeks. Each storm refilled the moat where my walkway used to be and kept the construction workers from their city-assigned task. When it wasn’t raining, we could hear work taking place on other streets in the area. Three plus weeks in, the front of my house was still a wheelie-no-go zone. It was getting a little old.

A call was placed to the number listed for the onsite supervisor, explaining that we understood about rain delays, but that the situation was starting to be a problem for the wheelchair-user in the family and asking when he thought they might be over this way to finish. He couldn’t give us a timeframe, he said, but would send someone over to cover the hole with something that might serve as a “bridge”. He got points for his attitude and for sounding like he at least understood the situation.

He got more points when, before the end of the day, there was *something* covering the hole. Granted, it was too flimsy for the BattleChariot and substantial occupant -- let’s just say I wouldn’t have ventured across it had the Tardis landed in the middle of the street and the 10th, 12th, and War Doctors, *and* Jack Harkness had stepped out and beckoned me aboard. But the supervisor was trying to be helpful, and that counts.

Yesterday, about noon, I looked out to see framing and rebar in the hole, and by late afternoon, concrete had been poured and smoothed into a a very nice section of walkway. That supervisor is getting a thank-you call shortly, and later today, I’m going out to reacquaint myself with the front of my house.

HarpHaven has been de-moated, and I am very happy.