Goodbye Potholes in Toft

All the notices around Toft indicated that the village would be closed yesterday for road works but the day came and went with no activity.  Today they took us by surprise and arrived unannounced to resurface the road.

 I was out with a macro lens so not fully equipped for the job but here is the workflow as it unfolded. First all the drains and manholes were taped, then the convoy came through with lots of noise and smells as they sprayed tar on the surface, followed by gravel from a second machine and finally a quite small roller that went over the surface a few times. 

Finally the tape etc was taken of the drains etc and the roads opened up just in time for me to collect the grandchildren from school - very slowly!! I wonder how long the potholes will stay filled in.

Road that Never Sleeps

This is just a reminder to myself not to book anything in Smethwick during the week in future years. The journey there on Thursday afternoon took over 3 hours as opposed to under 2 hours on normal roads. So I thought I would beat the traffic on Friday by leaving at 5.30am but, as you see, there was already a traffic jam through the road works on the M6.

M6 Services

Not sure quite what attracted me to this scene but crossed the bridge at the M6 services and felt this lonely sign sort of summed up the place.