Kerb Your Enthusiasm

Last January a man from the council turned up in our street to give us all some really good news. Our narrow street was to be made even more narrow by widening the pavement! As we live on a lane which ends up in a goat farm a couple of hundred yards up we don't actually have that many pedestrians hurrying to and fro. In fact if we see one person on foot passing by every fortnight, that's a lot.

That same week the council's contractors came along and put the new kerbstones in and left. This week, only 10 months later, they're back to finish the job.

So why do we need a new super wide pavement at the expense of a road which is now so narrow that we can't park on it? Why it's for the many disabled people confined to wheelchairs who in the past have had to trundle with extreme difficulty up the lane.

I'm all for making life easier for people whether able bodied or disabled and would applaud the council's thoughtfulness and concern on this issue where it not for one small point.

Lampposts!!!!!!!!!

If you couldn't get a wheelchair up before, you can't now because the lampposts still occupy their former position on the pavement.

Of course, there's even more irony to come because to make life easier for the flaggers, they've put the new flags straight over the old ones thus increasing the height of the pavement also. This means that the step up from our path to the pavement is now a whopping 43 cms (or 17 inches if my father ever reads this) which would merit a Thora Hird style stair lift should I ever lose the use of my legs in anything more permanent than an alcohol induced loss of control.

I have had some personal dealings with council staff and would advise anyone with tendencies towards apoplexy not to get involved. Here's a snippet of conversation twixt him and me.

me. 'When you make this pavement wider for no good reason I won't be able to park my car in front of my house.'

him. 'If you lived in Madrid you wouldn't be able to park in front of your house!'

me. 'I don't live in Madrid.'

him. 'And if you lived in Barcelona, you wouldn't be able to either.'

me. 'I don't live in Barcelona.'

him. 'And Ibiza town.'

me. 'I don't live in Ibiza town, I live on a small lane in the middle of nowhere.'

him. 'This is the urban centre of San Jose.'

me. 'So are we going to get those antique style lampposts which are everywhere in the village?'

him. 'No.'

me. 'Why not?'

him. 'Because you're not in the urban centre!'

The moral of this tale is never engage in an argument with a Spaniard. No matter how right you are, you'll never win!