The end of our road was repaired yesterday. This is a good thing, is it not? Well, not exactly.
The road is two miles long and connects my village with the outside world. It is the main road which is gritted - or not if you go back to last January - and, for our humble community, it is important. The problem is that the county council has deemed it sensible to repair the damage from the last freeze in the middle of a new freeze.
This is despite their pronouncements in January that it would be madness to repair roads in freezing conditions because the ice gets in below the repair and breaks it once more. This is also, note, ten months since the road sustained damage.
Now I shouldn't complain. Here in Tory Oxfordshire we should be grateful that the council repairs our roads, shouldn't we? After all, the county council has very little money - so little that it must close libraries - or at lest threaten their communities with closure to encourage the peasants to run them independently. The county is also likely to threaten our schools with myriad cuts, all once more aimed at sharing the pain a little.
Quite so, quite so, which is why I welcome the cut to councillors' allowances, to the leaders' allowance and, of course, to the Chief Executive's rather generous pay settlement. I assume these will be announced any time soon, along with the withdrawal of the free food and wine for councillors which accompanies their meetings. We must all share the pain.
So I shall go off to Witney today to purchase a cap which I can doff as the largesse of the council is spread beyond us poor people and I shall keep it in the cupboard ready to brandish in a suitably 'umble manner when they come to repair the newly damaged road next winter.
I am just thankful the electronic road signs remain in place to keep us informed about the slow drift of Oxford towards Moscow.
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