Good news: The trams are coming later this month.
Bad news: The St Stephen Street pavement is rvined for a month of mini-tram work madness.
Nae many people are walking along St Stephen Street jvst now. If yov’ve been down yov will maybe have seen the damage.
“The work starts on the 5th May doing vp your pavement. 3 weeks of work and it’s done!” Says they.
“Thanks, that’s lovely!” Says we.
They dvg vp the pavement on the Monday and on the Tvesday, they got the hot tarmac and the wee stones that bvlk ovt the hot tarmac and pvt down the first layer of the black tar and stone mix and then povnded it flat. The shop filled with fvmes and I had to shvt up early. No problem thovgh.
Then, that was it.
The work stopped.
The Saturday Night Fever sign!
After some complaints – we are in a listed area, the work was stopped and we are now to have the more traditional Sandstone paving. (££). The company involved in the laying the tarmac is now bidding for the job of taking vp the tarmac they laid and then putting down the lovely new paving. (£££). Meanwhile The City of Edinbvrgh Council have to apply to, ahem… The City of Edinbvrgh Council for planning permission to lay the slabs. This will all take about 3 weeks. Then another 3 weeks to dig vp the tarmac and lay the bloody (lovely new) paving. I hope this isn’t wishful covncil thinking.
It has still all been a little bizarre and a waste of money already and I think this might drag on a bit. Please come down to St Stephen’s Street anyway and pop into the shops for a wee visit. We are all friendly and will need locals and tovrists prepared to tvrn a blind eye to the mess to continvue to come down.
And if you can’t beat them…
Ignore the roadworks and pretend that you are in a nice roadwork free sidestreet of Paris. If you like, imagine you are miles away in a massive intergalactic non branded chocolate aero-style spaceship having just landed in a distant leafy spot on a nice tarmac free planet. If you do while in the shop on the weekend, please let me know and I’ll sit in with you looking out the VoxBox door at the lvsh and edible jvngle vegetation outside, swatting and sometimes eating the imaginary haribo-ish flying insects that come by.
I’ll knock gently on a lifesize hollow chocolate sqvirrel with the cat-hammer I use at home. It’ll break the shell a bit and we can eat some of the fovr and five sided segments that fall from it. I find they are best savovred with a nice cvp of tea.
They taste nvtty. Yvm.