Order of the Bath

It’s a nice sunny day, the sky is blue, the trees are green, the road is yellow, red, blue, green and silver—it’s playmobile land! No, the road markers have been out and the men with pneumatic drills are coming your way.

Health alert—this is a seriously anorak posting.

• Yellow marks and it is Gas. If there are piles of big thick yellow plastic pipes nearby then it is serious gas and you will be disrupted for weeks with yellow diggers and men in yellow jackets and yellow hats. Everything about gas is yellow; except the gas.
• Blue marks and it is water. The water boys are clever. They have ways of slipping a new plastic pipe inside the old iron one. That means fewer holes in the road.
• Red marks and it is electricity. Lots of red marks with big numbers by them and it means high voltage electricity, maybe replacing a substation or something. Get in a stock of candles.
• Grey/Silver or Green marks and it is communications. Silver is normally used by BT and green by the cable TV people. They can often do their job using a mole so very small holes but there will be men with a tent over a manhole cover drinking tea for weeks.
• Orange corrugated pipes and it is street lighting. Expect to be going home in the dark for a while but when they have finished you will be unable to tell night from day.
• Purple corrugated pipes and it is motorway services like phones and information signs. That will mean lane closures to keep you away from the hard shoulders and verges for quite some time. Look out for those 40mph cameras.
• Marks like someone has been playing with the paintbox all over the road in every possible colour usually means drains work. They have to get every one to tell them where their ducts go because they dig such large holes that it disturbs everything. Expect roads to close completely for long periods. Also expect a nasty smell.

But, while they are there, you could make a note of the marks nearby. It may come in useful later when your garden has sprouted a new water fountain.

This entry was posted on 23 Jan 2006 at 22:28 by Rick and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.