WATER BORED (2)

Day three of the strange excavations of the water board I believed would bring nothing new. After all, so far they'd discovered no undiscovered remains of lost kings, no Roman silver coins and, mercifully, no corpses left by any former occupants of Blogfordshire Towers.

Instead I imagined that things would remain much the same as they had done the day before, except that I had taken a moment and moved my bucket ("Oo-er, missus!") when I spotted a dog happily drinking the ghastly contents of it.

But then, at half past ten, I heard mutterings outside and bounded downstairs to see fluorescent jackets through the frosted glass of the back door. After dithering, I summoned up what little courage I had and engaged with them, asking what had become of the broken pieces of paving stone that their colleagues had carted away, and whether they were likely to be able to put in a decently matching replacement...?

"It'll stick out like a sore thumb!" came the gleeful reply. You could tell that this gentlemen was enjoying putting one over on the obvious tosser who had buttonholed him. He already knew that there would be sore thumbery as they were going to use a standard concrete slab, but had been hoping, I imagine, to scurry away from what they thought to be an empty house before anyone could comment, and, because I obviously registered some displeasure, he promised to "Get on to t'gaffer" and ask whether they'd be able to source a more suitable replacement because, he claimed, they do actually do that kind of thing.

I did point out that, given that the entire row had identical stone flags, someone was likely to mention it being so very different, and he nodded in what I mistook for a vaguely sympathetic manner.

In the meantime though, he explained, because of penalty clauses with "t'council" and so forth, they told me they would have to patch it with what they had, which they then did before going away, with me suspecting that this would be the very last we ever see of the Utilities crowd, at least with regard to this particular project...

And what a lovely job United Utilities have made of blending in when replacing the old stone flag that they broke...

The weekend followed and, naturally (for we are talking "working days" here) team number four did not appear with an old stone flag, as I suspect they never will. I did, however, come up with a new game to play. As I walk around town, every time I spot a flagstone that doesn't match all the ones surrounding it, especially if there's been an architectural choice to make the area more pleasing, or if I see a kerbstone that doesn't match the rest, or a patch of road surface which looks slightly different to all of the surrounding area, I will stop and point and say "Look! Another United Utilities like-for-like repair!"

This might keep me amused for months...