Tarmacadam. I just like that word.
There’s a man up the street who works for the local council, every time I go to get the train at eight o’clock in the morning he’s always there, sweeping the leaves. He’s clearly a hard worker, but this puzzles me - what urgent need is there for the local authority to pay someone to haul themselves out of their bed at the crack of dawn to sweep leaves? I suppose that commuters are a delicate lot, and God forbid anyone slips and dirties their suit. It’s a tough world out there, it really is.
Further up the street are some workmen labouring (but not enough to work up a sweat) just past signs that warned the road was closing for three months at the beginning of June. Just this past week the road has been a hive of activity, what was a south London crater is turning into a reformed bit of tarmac. I find it odd that these chaps are suddenly working that much harder now their three months are up, given the area was dormant for the last couple of weeks when I first arrived - you would think that these sorts of chaps have some schedule to keep to, a tight timeline of events to be fulfilled. Now me - I leave things until the last minute, I’m not brilliantly well-organised unless I try very hard, these things do tend to be a bit of a rush. On the other hand, I don’t build roads.
There we have it - a microcosm of society in a hundred metres.
Tags: I've been thinking...