Roadworks

It rained quite heavily overnight, but the west wind blew again and cleared away some of the cloud cover, so we woke up to sunshine, though not a clear sky. After breakfast I finished my Sunday sermon for St German's then prepared lunch early, ready for cooking while Clare was out. When she returned I walked to Nesbit's kitchen equipment store on Cowbridge Road East to buy her a new pastry brush. The meal was ready to serve by the time I got back. After lunch I had a brief siesta then went to collect my summer jacket from dry cleaning at Canton Launderette, much needed after my Spanish sojourn. Then an hour in Llandaff Fields before a cup of tea and a piece of cake. 

When schools close for the summer vacation, the volume of weekday commuting traffic decreases greatly, roads are quieter, easier for a pedestrian to cross. About a month ago near the junction of Llanfair and Llandaff Roads, the cover of an access chamber for underground cables and pipes was left open a few inches and surrounded by yellow plastic security barriers with a 'No smoking' notice. Someone had reported a smell of gas in the vicinity. I lost count of the number of times stupid mischief makers knocked over the barriers for someone else to re-erect. Last week several surveyors' hieroglyphs got sprayed on the  footpath. Still no indication of when anything else would happen. 

Two days ago big vans turned up, temporary traffic lights were installed bypassing ordinary ones, more yellow barriers were erected and the junction of Llanfair and Romilly Roads reduced to one way traffic, while a meter square hole was excavated in the road. I wondered how long this would create congestion at a normally quiet time of year. To my surprise, twenty four hours later, the hole was refilled and temporary lights taken away. A smooth operation. All back to normal again, problem solved. 

This was perhaps the best time for the work to be done. Doing this at a busy junction involves tight collaboration between several work teams. Hiring an excavation service, arranging delivery and removal of safety barriers, hiring and managing temporary traffic lights, scheduling engineers to investigate the leak. Organising and planning all this takes time, especially if there are more urgent gas leaks elsewhere in the city. Which serves to explain why it took so long from reporting the gas leak to conclusion. Thankfully hi-tech sensors are used initially determine the measure of risk. Last winter it took several months to deal with a leak on an even busier stretch of road by Llandaff Fields in a stretch of old gas pipeline that had to be patched as replacing pipe in a 300m stretch of road would cause even more disruption, and need more time and resources to implement. What it takes to run a city!

Full cloud cover returned later in the day, and with the temperature at 16C it felt like an autumnal evening. After supper I read until nine then watched this week's episode of 'Hostage' before going to bed early.