Trees? ... Please

Well, I waited and waited ... and waited with breath quite bated - ooh, I say, rhyming tripe - for the other trees to arrive across the road from us. There was a bare space at the back, room for lots of trees! Everywhere else had plants right up to the fence.

The gardeners were working further down the street - near our entrance to Asda - we noticed that the planting around there seemed a lot more dense [yes, this could have been an illusion caused by the angle I was observing from, but this is my diary and I'll moan if I want to], with nicer plants ... and more trees.

Wednesday morning:

7.15 - CRASH, CLATTER, RATTLE, RATTLE, flashing orange lights. 'What the chuffin heck are they doing now!?' ... Oh, my mistake, it wasn't RG Group on a mission to wake me up. It was the recycling lorry, which has been coming early since it could no longer get up the street at it's more normal we're-all-awake-and-I'll-just-dash-out-with-a-bit-more-recycling-if-you-don't-mind time. Bugger, I'm awake now, I may as well open the curtains and watch the trains and site workers arrive ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

8.00 - I'm awake! I'm awake! Y-a-w-n, s-t-r-e-t-c-h, I really will open the curtains now. YIKES! Where's me nets when I need 'em? - actually I did try them back up but didn't like them. They're proper, heavy Nottingham lace and block out everything, which was fine when all we'd got for a view was a brick wall and a rusting mural on the side of the bridge steps - there were men, straight across from us taking down the temporary fence, I had to hide what was left of my dignity behind a curtain [yes, it is wide enough], somewhat sharpish.

8.20 - Knock at the door ... 'Can you move the cars please?' He meant, of course, the ones in our private car park the turning circle. I phoned one neighbour to tell her ... 'What, now? I'm not dressed, mutter, mutter...' The grumpy old man told our other neighbour - well, he told her son as she too was indisposed. They're an idle lot up here when the kids are off school ... I'm going to suffer for that comment aren't I neighbour?

Whilst the GOM was down the street after moving the car, he decided to ask the gardeners about our trees - or lack of ... 'Have you forgotten the trees at the top of the street?'
'There are no more trees'
'Are you sure? There's only a little one and we think there should be more, especially as they chopped a big one down from near there. That should really be replaced' [I have the evidence of this tree murder].

Upon grumpy's return I text my neighbour and relayed this latest annoyance, she was still outside having just moved her car so she asked the foreman - who was standing in the wrong place at just the wrong time - 'But there's space left for more trees ... leave it with me'. was his reply.

A little later, the bark arrived, don't they normally put that down after the planting? ... I wasn't to worry, I need to be more patient [I don't do patient, I'm getting old you know!!]. We were assured that the trees were coming but the bark had arrived and needed shifting straight away. OK, I'll wait ... and wait ... and wait.

Oh bugger this, I'm going across to plant my slightly dead Christmas tree and very much alive cherry tree if they don't bring us more trees soon. I'm also willing to go on a mission to dig up a couple of silver birches from nearby - seeing as they've already crushed countless trees with their big heaps next to the railway lines.

Thursday morning:

9.15 I SEE TREES!! Well, two more anyway. There is still a huge empty space at the back - hmm, I suppose it's somewhere for all the cats to have a wee. But, ho, hum, if it's not planted soon it may end up accommodating some unexpected flora ...

Tesco Generosity And A Conundrum

Thanks Tesco for your very generous £10 off coupons, most people I know only got £6 off. Even better, you sent both the grumpy old man and myself the same letter, so two lots, unfortunately as I was in exile at Skegness with my cat for the last two months we missed the first week.

These coupons, ostensibly, are to celebrate the revamp of our local Tesco in Heanor ... nothing at all then to do with the fact that Asda in Langley Mill - with our own little path from Bridge Street - is nearly open ... No? OK. Well whatever the reason, thanks for these lovely coupons - ARE YOU TAKING NOTE ASDA??? I can be bought! - we'll be up to whizz around Tesco with a trolly and calculator each [well I don't want to accidentally spend £29.95 and himself £30.05].

Now Asda, you seem to have sparked a mini-debate amongst my friends on seasons. You advertise your Langley Mill store opening as the 'Winter Opening' on November 8th. I've asked one or two intelligent people who surprised me by agreeing with you, that November is indeed a winter month.

As far as I was aware - obviously making me less intelligent than I thought I was, but I can live with this ... just - November in England has always been firmly lodged in Autumn, at least it has in my lifetime. This is something I knew from an early age because I wanted my birthday to be in winter - I can't help it, I love snow and sparkly frost; even now - and I was told by someone nasty [my mother] that it wasn't.

As I grew up [a couple of years ago] I understood there to be two recognized dates for the start of winter here. There’s the astronomical start on the 21st/22nd December [the date I adhere to] and the meteorological start on the 1st December and now we have the Asda [or even Celtic] start to winter on 1st November.

Anyone who wants to join in this debate please feel free to leave a comment, I won't be at all offended by anyone disagreeing with me as my childhood wish of being a winter baby will be fulfilled.

Umm, Am I being boring? Yes, I thought so.

OK, back to the real world - there are now men high up on a 'cherry picker' sticking green 'ASDA' letters and a red blob with 24 hours cut out around the back of the building, I think there may probably be more of these cheapo signs to come. Presumably this is in case we're all unaware that Asda is there or maybe they're trying to attract passing custom as the trains go by, hmm, well it's a thought.

Soil is being turned over across the road as I type and there are lots of plants with a few diddy trees, apparently the larger specimens are due this week. I await their arrival with bated breath, you know I absolutely adore trees.

What the chuff is that!!?? It's 7.35pm and some pillocks are grinding/cutting something noisily with sparks flying everywhere, straight across from us on Heanor Haulages bit! Bog off back into Asda to do it. And why do the workmen do everything in reverse? Can't they drive their diggers/lorries etc forwards? It's bleep-bloody-bleep all the time - moan, whinge. And my front windows are FILTHY, it looks like they've had wet sand sprayed on them, I'll have to put my nets back up to hide the muck at this rate, which is not conducive to my nosiness  - tut, I've only been back a day ...

And So It Continues

RG Group say they're putting Bridge Street back to it's full width this week which will seem very odd after seven months, and they'll be removing the 'turning circle/private car park'.

They've been working constantly on the white box that is Langley Mill's Asda and its surroundings for what now seems like forever, including doing the smelly tarmacking today - Sunday! I can only assume this is RG Group's version of working on Bridge Street during 'off-peak' hours as they said they'd be doing in one of their letters. They also regard delivering concrete at 8.00am on a week day as 'off-peak' - how strange.

Really, the noise and disruption plus a total disregard for safety at times to Bridge Street residents has been horrendous just lately, I only hope it'll be worth it in the end because some of us are starting to get very fraught and close to the edge.

RG Group, in my opinion started quite well in the beginning when I gave them 'gold star' status because they really tried to be as considerate as possible - then they slipped progressively down my scale of excellence, passing through:

1. Noisy gits.
2. Pains in the arse.
3. Ignorant sods.

They now seem to be giving the impression that they'll soon be going so who cares. And where are our greenery and trees? They haven't arrived yet!!

Now ahem, we've heard a rumour that if you complain about the noise and muck etc. you'll be given vouchers to get your car cleaned. But it hardly seems fair that we should have to complain to receive anything from Asda or RG Group after all this constant disruption to our lives. Cleaning our windows a few times so we can see better what they're doing really isn't really much of a compensation even if I am nosy, now is it?

And seeing as I'm the shy retiring type who doesn't like to moan about anything [cough, splutter], I can't really see us complaining, can you? Even though they put the grumpy old man and myself through absolute hell when it was so earth shatteringly noisy and shaky they scared our cat into hiding where she was trapped for five days. Then we weren't allowed to look for her even though she was only a stone's throw away, resulting in me being forever branded a trespasser [oh yes, I'm a proper rebel I am].

Hmm, now where is that pile of letters with their phone number ...

New Housing On Cromford Road

As per usual, I've been nosily looking at [AVBC] plans for our area just in case there's summat worth moaning about. I noticed one plan for up to 76 lodges plus two carp lakes behind Stoneyford Lodge, then I came across another that I thought had already been passed.

I soon realised it was yet another amendment [Variation of unilateral undertaking] to something no-one wanted in the first place. Oh yes, I can definitely feel a whinge coming on [of course in the meantime I've since read another interesting and far superior blog on the same subject but I won't let that put me off].

Over the last few years estates have sprouted up on all our green bits - the new housing on North Street is ok as it was mostly replacing Aristoc. But the estate at Langley really peeved me at the time as I then lived nearby - a bit of it was land previously owned by Heanor Haulage [yes, the same Heanor Haulage that sold the land for our new Asda in front of us], but the rest of it was fields. To be extra annoying they cut our road [Laceyfields Road] into four bits so the new estate had priority, oh yes, and they completely arsed up the bit of road near the school.

I can't really see how we can keep having more and more houses being built, but no new schools, doctors or amenities etc. to keep up with them. There are now no spaces between our towns and villages in the surrounding area - you can tell this while travelling as the speed limit is always 30mph meaning it's a built up area - making us one vast sprawl rather than the proper communities we used to be.

The Post Office already got rid of place names like Marlpool and Langley years ago, telling us that we lived in Heanor. It was like being told I'm British and not English so I was always one of those people that insisted on keeping Langley in my address whether the post office liked it or not. Gosh, I thought my grumpydom was more recent than that.

Anyway, where was I? Tut, this was only going to be two chuffing paragraphs when I started, I've got sidetracked again. Ah, yes, on to my newest moan:

Talk about cheap, nasty and GREEDY! Miller Homes who have already had their highly controversial plan passed for 109 houses - to be built on one of our few remaining green bits in Langley Mill - against our community's wishes, now want to renege on the deal with the council. Specifically, the amount of affordable boxes homes. They now want to build 6 instead of 30. They also want to reduce the bribe S106 monies agreed to. Presumably this poor company is now bleating about their profits not being big enough. Ahh, shame.

Well here's an interesting suggestion Miller Homes - bog off and build your houses elsewhere ...

Banking In Langley Mill?

I have read that Santander would like to open a branch in one of Asda's units. I hope this gets approval because I happen to know some crumblies who have to go to Derby every time they want to do a bit of banking.

I also happen to know a much closer and grumpier crumbly who is sophisticated enough to do telephone banking with a couple of his accounts. This was a real treat when listening to the 'password' bit of the conversation:

'The third character, hmm ... is it *? Oh good.'
'The eighth one!! ... Er, I've only got five, are you sure I've got eight?'
'Can't you ask me the next question instead?'
'Can't you give me a clue?'
'Oh does *** come at the end?'
'Well it'll be *.'
'YES!!'

Shortly after witnessing this one sided conversation I upgraded him to online banking where I'm in control - with my moderately younger memory - of all the letters and numbers.

Oh bugger it! I've just tried to log onto his ******* account in a smug-show-offy-I-do-online-banking-you're-a-div-if-you-don't kind of way, and now I've remembered that last time I logged on, WE had to create another memorable bit after the password - yeah, I've forgotten it ...

More Heaps And Bleeps

Ooooooh, it's getting exciting now! The hoarding has been coming down on Bridge Street the last couple of days, new fencing has gone up and there have been numerous deliveries of soil all day - very noisy with lorries bleep bleep bleeping! I suppose it couldn't be helped though and the drivers always gave way to residents wanting to get past.

I can't wait for my huge tree to arrive to block my view of everything [that was a dream I had - I can't help my dreams]. The landscaping should be properly under way soon, with lots of green stuff for us to look at instead of the truly awful view we had.

Well, it's beginning to look like the end of the disruption to Bridge Street residents is in sight and we'll be left in peace at last, I won't have anything left to moan about.

What's that you say? Asda will be open soon with people shopping and deliveries being made all hours of the day [tut]. Then of course [lucky us] we'll have the noise of all sixty new peasant boxes affordable houses being built behind us - hmm, we'll see ...