Dave and Roads in the Press

If you pretend it's Sunday at 91:30 then I'm still in the weekend, sort of...

Over the last few months we've been in the papers a bit, check out the Sentinel:
http://www.shbc.sh/L2_sentinel_about.html
25th October, page 9; 6th September page 5

and the Independant:
http://www.saint.fm/Independent/index.htm
7th September, page 3; 2nd November, page 6

I'm also hoping both papers will carry something this week, and the Sentinel have promised another short video about our traffic lights.

I don't seem to have received anything for the score of 94% dissatisfaction with the Roads. I really do wonder who the 5 people who are satisfied are. The roads are in a state and it's pointless pretending their not.

So what are we doing. Well I did start drafting this post last Friday and called it 'a Good Week' well it was, but now it's very very late on Sunday (so late I've been to work 3 times since dinner and it's nearly next weekend) I can't quite say the same.

Last week we were gearing up to start a Summer program this week. We had a reasonably positive works meeting to explain the new teams and the reasons behind us doing what we're doing. We setup the signals as a test, we had things ready for a start this week, and our JCB driver passed his test (well done Lynton). In short I went home on Friday thinking we were ready, Monday morning we'd be able to proceed with the plan and we were ready.

Now it's Wednesday (ok, I'll admit it, it's not Sunday) and things haven't quite gone to plan, but there are no disasters. One of the biggest problems is that the Chip Spreader works (and that's a problem???), this means that instead of 3-400m2 a day, we can do 4 times that, and suddenly the 200m range on our signals isn't enough. With the chip spreader we could have done with a closure, which we don't have.

Anyway, things are looking up. I think we're going to get there, and with the Chip Spreader working we may need to massively revise our ambitions (suddenly the ambitious programme doesn't look so ambitious). Another Bitumen tanker arrived on the RMS yesterday, and hopefully will come ashore tomorrow so we can start using it early next week. My GIS system is up and running (see www.qgis.org), I attended EXCO (think Cabinet) yesterday morning and they were supportive of the proposals, although I now have extra pressure to deliver on the publicity side (hence hoping something makes the papers this week, and then next week, and the week after). So busy busy, but good.


p.s. I found this photo online, I don't think I'm in any of the others, but maybe I will be soon... http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=526436100704686&set=a.526435927371370.135931.258607090820923&type=3&theater