New pump

Following the more or less conventional pump lorry noticed yesterday towards the end of reference 1, out on the Screwfix tunnel circuit to find an entirely new sort of pump lorry blocking Meadway, just below the new frame house. For which, for example, see reference 2. With more holes in the road a bit further up the hill.

Inquiring at this second set of holes, it turned out that the two sets of holes were quite different. The ones more or less opposite the frame house were to do with installation of the gas supply, in the form of a yellow plastic pipe maybe 3cm in diameter. The ones down the hill were to do with a gas leak and featured a vacuum excavation lorry from Pier (UK) of reference 3. The idea is that you just suck up the soil to make one's hole, possibly using compressed air or water to loosen it up a bit in the first place. Very good for digging holes in awkward places, say full of service pipework which you don't want to disturb, let alone damage. The snap above, of a quite different brand of lorry, gives the idea. An idea which, it seems, is popular in Canada and which is now making headway over here.

Reference 3 offers various videos, including the one at reference 4. Cut the black top off. Stick your pipe down the hole.

Power up the pump and off you go. Yet to work out what the two compartments left are about, but it looks to be some sort of sorting by size. No doubt an expensive contraption, but one which is going to save a lot of manual work and avoid a lot of damage.

Perhaps we have the computer games industry to thank for making the construction of animations like this cheap enough to be worth their while for companies like Pier.

Carried on round the circuit to Ebbisham Square, outside the library, where the street food sheds installed a year or so ago are not thriving. I think one of the three remaining survives to service the large gang of food delivery drivers who hang out in and around the nearby McDonald's. 

It all goes to show that when you make something which starts rather informally formal, you take some of the gloss off. People want it to be a touch anarchic, authentic ethnic food from the grass roots, and certainly not smelling of council bureaucrats, however well meaning. Some enterprising type from East London renting out sheds to foreigners, maybe.

One supposes that the coffee chain at reference 5 took the lease - from the council? - and now want to sublet. Open to offers. But I thought throwing services into the rent was taking a bit of a chance. Depending on the nature of the food and the weather, one of these sheds could burn up a lot of gas. Wifi and all?

One of their better shops, up a notch from a shed.

No trolleys to be seen or collected in town centre, although I did not check station approach. While the East Street creationists seem to have been bashed into line by their janitor, with this once quality source of trolleys now run dry.

And so on around to the passage which leads to the Netflix tunnel, where I was treated to a very pretty display of periwinkles. Spring really is coming.

A fence to the setting for the horselet mini-series to be found at reference 6. Land perhaps now coveted by Failin' Graylin' and his developer friends, possibly for the provision of affordable homes, well out of the way of all the good people who are likely to vote for him.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/new-bag.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/a-proper-programme.html.

Reference 3: https://www.pier-uk.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYU_46yaSXo.

Reference 5: https://esquirescoffee.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=horselet&max-results=20&by-date=true.