When is a pot hole not a pot hole?

Hubby and I must be mad. Absolutely, totally and completely nuts. Why? Because we braved the elements to take the dog out for her walk this morning. She is a creature of habit, and we were herded towards the front door around 11am, her patience finally giving out when a series of vocal squeaks and toy offerings failed to get us to put our coats on.

It was pouring with rain, and had been practically all night again. It was also cold, but we all had coats, and we humans could always do our Black Bat impressions by wearing the capes we’d bought for such events a couple of years ago. They came down past our knees and were also windproof.

We got in the car, and headed off to the woods. I swear her ladyship was smiling on the back seat.

The roads in our area are abysmal. They are full of pot holes, and despite complaints to the council, practical and permanent repairs are not forthcoming. Occasionally, a little man pulls up outside our property in his white truck with a load of ‘tarmac’ sitting on the back bed. He jumps out of the cab, and releases the back catch, retrieves his shovel and promptly deposits one or two shovelfuls into the hole that we have duly reported. The first time we saw him do it, he reversed, drove over, and reversed again before driving off from his handiwork.

Less than a month later, the hole was back, just a little bigger than last time. You can see where I’m going with this can’t you. Sure enough, eventually the same little man came back, stopped outside our property and repeated the procedure, but added an extra shovelful of tarmac for good measure. He patted it on the head, I mean top, reversed once, and drove away.Lately, he does not even bother to reverse, and the hole is just getting bigger and longer.

Somewhere in the filing system at the council offices (or WPB, file 19 or whatever you like to call the bin these days)  is a Repair Order Requisition Form with our address on it for the job. It is also officially requesting the traffic lights that will be needed outside our house so that the road can be dug up, levelled, and patched properly to prevent the recurring problem. I know this, because a very nice lady came out to see us especially to assure us that she had put in the necessary paperwork with the required photographic evidence of the damage, and it was just a matter of funding. She even took some more digital photos to show the current position. That was six months ago. We reported the problem again for the nth time and last week, our little man (don’t know his name yet, but have offered him a cup of tea) came back in a bigger truck, had a bigger shovel and a mate, and did his toupee coverup, I mean temporary repair. With all this rain, things are starting to lift again already.

Anyway, as we drive out to the woods every day, we are so familiar with all the potholes en route, we are practically on first name terms. All are filled with water now, some overflowing into the middle of the road, and in the majority of cases we are able to avoid the holes sufficiently so as not to jar the shock absorbers and rear suspension which were replaced last year. Unlike some idiots who get a thrill out of deliberately driving through the puddles at speed in the hope of drenching pedestrians (or the lorry drivers that whoosh past our house and drench us if we are in our front garden) , we tend to slow down if there is approaching traffic. After all, we know how deep some of these damn things are and the damage they can cause (hence shock absorbers and suspension job) .

Going back to my question though.

When is a Pot Hole not a Pot Hole?

Answer: When it’s full of water and resembles a small pond.

It was a shame we didn’t have the camera as I could have taken a picture of the duck swimming contentedly in the water of a rather large pothole (not the one outside our house though, the road’s too busy!) then sent it in to the council as proof that something really ought to be done before it becomes this

or this

(Pics found on google)