Aguste Rodin: The Thinker (Google Images)
WATER WORKS MEAN ROUGH ROADS
Every time I hear anyone mention road or water works I think back in time to when my Uncle Rayal used to tell us stories and the one about the roads was this. “Boy I can remember when I was coming round the corner of Fort Street, there was such a big hole in the road that when my car went into it I had to get out to see if anything was coming before I drove the car out again.”
Isn’t it marvellous – as soon as the rains are due, some kind of road works begin as well.
Going back 3 months ago the Water Company parked all their equipment on a vacant plot of land near my property – they brought in a lot of rubble like building material, cement blocks and big chunks of rock which were all crushed down to marl or sand to use as fill for the trenches they were about to dig.
Well, right after they started, the first rain came and my garden was full of white water from all the fill they had on the property. Another half-inch of water and my downstairs would have been flooded out (That was Cayman Water.)
Since the above, Water Authority have been ripping up and closing roads, decorating with red cones, blue plastic pipes along the road, not to mention men in their special orange and green coats and hard top hats directing or stopping traffic altogether. Entrances in and out of properties are decorated with black asphalt three or four inches high. When we drive over them we have to clench our teeth to keep from shattering them. Bits of tarmac follow us, sticking to our under carriage and this is annoying as it’s hard to get off. Every hole they dig into to carry out some kind of work, when they patch it they fill two or three inches too high, making another bump in the road. Why can’t they level it out properly I don’t know. So our nice roads and highways, which the last government put into place, are now being ruined by the work being carried out. I really can’t understand why they wait for the rainy season before they decide to do these so called improvements. Can you? Yes, believe you me, Road works mean Very Rough Roads.
By: Joan Wilson
AFTER APRIL ‘11
After April, what will happen?
Will my soon-to-be-sovereign’s marriage still be as satisfying to the media as a super-sized sweet mocha latte with extra froth and the warming curve of spice; or will the nuptials be swallowed as quickly as a lukewarm shot of espresso, chased by a limp order of recession salad with a main course of heavy taxes and the anticlimax of Olympic fudge for afters. Will I care, after April?
After April will the Cayman sound of the cockerel’s dawn solo be replaced by the London
After April will I resign the soft salt kisses of spray of my sunset evenings on the boardwalk? Will I forget the hitching waves, like the sulky teenage girls of historical romances deciding whether or not to shlump their weight onto the ironshore, letting the lace edges of their dresses eddy and fall into silent, unprotesting pools. Will I miss the sun-soaked breeze’s soft push, like a teasing friend, when the moody rain of gray postpones the tepid sun of the tentative British summer?
After April, will I look forward to my world ending in 20 months, or if the Mayan calendar is not synchronized with my own, welcome it sooner?
By: Juliet Garricks
Miracle in the Grass.
Walking out this early morn on
the sparkling dew wet grass,
a brilliant shade of yellow, stands
tall beside my feet.
A lone and perfect crocus,
blossom raised to greet the
rising sun.
From whence it came, I do not
know, but surely, magic to my eyes.
Now potted, loved, in its new
home. Clay (pot) by the potter
made.
By: Brenda Quin
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