So I reached the bottom of the steep hill by the school, and it said the road was closed and there was a diversion sign. No problem, I thought, I'll just go the long way round.
Except that when I reached the fork in the lane, the left hand road, the one that led to the top of my friend's hill, was blocked with cones and a sign saying, "Road closed".
Aaarrgh!
I did a 3-point turn and then pulled over into a small layby so I could phone M and explain that there was currently no way to drive to her house. Meanwhile other cars were also arriving and turning round. Then one stopped beside me and I wound the window down to speak to the woman driver. She had guessed who I was and asked if I was trying to get to M's house. I replied that I was and she told me she was also trying to get there. "I'm going to phone M now and explain the problem," I said.
So I phoned M and fortunately she thought it was very funny. I apologised and said I would go shopping and come up later if I could work out how I could get there. Half way round the Co-op, my phone rang. It was C, the woman who'd stopped her car to speak to me. "You can get up the hill by the school," she said. "Ignore the road closed sign."
So I finished my food shopping and drove through the centre of town over the bumpy unsurfaced road, trying to avoid the raised grids and manhole covers and then ignored the "Road closed" and "Diversion" signs and drove up the bumpy unsurfaced road to M's house.
The heavens had opened by the time I was leaving, but I already had my shopping so after bumping carefully down the unsurfaced hill, I drove back round the by-pass to avoid the town centre.
I will be really glad when it's all finished, but who thought it was a good idea to close the only two roads leading to the cluster of houses on that side of town? There are quite a lot of people who live up there.
