Construction work almost finished in our street... maybe?

Life seems to have been dominated, recently, by the sewerage pipes being put down in our neighbourhood. It's noisy, and dusty, and means that people driving to or from our house have to find new routes almost every time, since different streets are closed off in the area.

The first digging in our little bit of street happened just over three weeks ago. A day later, the noise was considerably worse and the disruption extensive. Then we had a little peace, until they started digging trenches across the road, to join (eventually) with our septic tanks.

As I explained in the last of those posts, the workmen then roughly covered over the holes, leaving the road bumpy but useable. As it remained until a few days ago, when the diggers and other noisy machines came back. Slightly to our surprise, they dug up the top couple of inches along all the channels (lengthways and crossways) that had been roughly surfaced, and removed all the excess rubble. it looked rather neater than it had done:


But made the road, once again, unusable for cars. And it all seemed remarkably inefficient... why put the rough surface down, we wondered, if they were going to dig it up again a week later?!

The following day, all was quiet. At least, it was in our street. We heard the ongoing rumble of digging and other construction work in other roads nearby.

Then, after the time when the workmen usually finish, they arrived with just one machine, and painted some kind of tarmac along all the new shallow channels. Perhaps they needed to seal them in some way:


There were barriers and diversion signs at both ends of the road, but they didn't stop an intrepid driver who drove half way along the street, bumping noisily in and out of the channels, making me wince each time and wonder just how much damage had been done to a rather new-looking car.

However, almost opposite our house the driver got stuck in a slightly wider hole, and had to reverse out after rather a struggle. Then performed something like a 23-point-turn to turn the car around... which was finally achieved to the accompaniment of applause from several of the neighbours who had gone out to watch.

The following day, the workmen returned, starting at 7.00am as usual, and working through the day. This time, they managed to fill in all the shallow holes on one side of the road, meaning that cars could at least get along it without bumping up and down too much:


I took that picture just after several of the neighbours had been out with their hoses, washing down the street, as Cypriots love to do.

And today, at last, the road itself is completely done. At least, the surface is smooth.

Well, fairly smooth.

It would have been too much to hope for a complete re-surface, but it definitely looks better, although it's hard to tell from this photo:


- the only thing now lacking is access into driveways, where the pavement is still rough and unfinished.