Makes you wonder…

Some things stand out and make me think “I wonder why….”

Today was one of those winter days where all you want to do is build up the fire and and watch the World slide by. Slide being the relevant word here, sadly we had to go out early this morning so we wrapped up and set off in the car. Halfway up the hill the tyres held up a white flag and we were stranded, a careful three (or was it six) point turn later and we were sliding downhill hoping that at some point the car would either slow down and stop or that whatever we hit was nice and soft.

A couple of hours later I went for a wander with the dog and a shovel in search of the grit piles Cumbria County Council claim to have topped up around the County. My intention was to throw enough grit onto the road to make them safe again, a simple intention, but one doomed to failure. Unfortunately all the grit piles the Council had supposedly topped up were no where to be seen and so I had to leave the road like I found it looking like this –

A few hours later and I went for a walk up the hill, the road had seen a bit of 4×4 use and the snow has compressed and frozen into something you’d normally see Torville and Dean dance the Bolero on. I was about to turn back when I noticed something odd, in the distance I could see the road surface, not just a little clear patch but the whole road. When I got closer it was obvious the road had been cleared and treated, the line between the treated and untreated areas was quite obvious –

So, I started to wonder, why would the Council clear half a road? Has someone with a bit of clout moved into the area? If someone has a better idea of why the Council would take the trouble to drive up the hill and only clear a portion of it I’d be interested to hear it, but for now the word ‘nepotism’ is running through my head 😉

Here’s a little map of the road with the treated section marked in yellow and the untreated section in red.

I’ve made a number of requests to the Council to have the grit piles topped up, the requests so far have fallen on deaf ears.

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4 Thoughts to “Makes you wonder…”

  1. Liz Wicksteed

    I see what you mean. But having worked in the civil service I find cock-up theories way more persuasive than conspiracy ones. My guess is some wally didn’t put enough grit in the truck.

    Lovely photos by the way!

    Liz

    1. Anything is possible cock-up/conspiracy/driver out for a jolly…. We’ve lived here for over a decade and this is the first time we’ve seen any part of the road cleared by the gritter wagon which is odd.

  2. dlanod

    I’d believe the nepotism. We have a dirt road leading to our place in North Queensland. No real surprise there, not many people live down our way. However about half the distance to our place got surfaced with bitumen about 10 years ago – magically coinciding with a guy down the road getting elected to parliament, and the bitumen stopped about 100 metres past his place. There’s coincidences and then there’s coincidences.

    1. dlanod, I’m thinking of standing for some sort of office just so I can be corrupt for a while and improve things for us at the taxpayers expense. I’m just waiting for the course on bribes & backhanders to become available – it’s booked solid for months -)

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