Watch out! Road work ahead.

There's a bit of a kerfluffle going on outside tonight. When we arrived home there was a roadsign face-down on the street by our house. There were orange cones lined up on the footpath like they were on sentry duty. And this is Christchurch man, it's not like they just toss those things around willy-nilly you know.

I did vaguely recall that there have been road-signs either way on Greers Road. For a week or so. But who has time to read those things when they're a passenger in a bus or car with nothing else to do?

So I wandered down the road to find out that for the rest of the week the main road next to our house is undergoing something that requires all traffic to cease between the hours of 7.00pm to 7.00am.

That means it will screw us up in the morning, but at least will be over by the time I return home from work each day. Unless I'm running super-late and that would cause me more concern than whether there's a road block between my bus-stop and the house.

However, there is an unforeseen side-effect that the traffic signs couldn't warn us about. Extra traffic.

The road they're currently hard at work on (or moderately at work on at a minimum) is a main one. Not an arterial road perhaps, but certainly a major vein. Like the big squishy one in the side of your wrist that'll bleed a whole lot if you cut it but not really ever pose a risk to life (unless you're Doctor Kelly.) Or the one in your inner arm that the blood vampires pop a needle in before they drain a pint (BTW blood donors are urgently needed in Christchurch at the moment so please don't let my description put you off a wonderful contribution to society that has the added benefit of 600g instant weight-loss!)

This means that it has a constant flow of traffic through it. Or it would have if it were open. Since it's not, we now have a constant flow of very concerned drivers wondering how the hell they're meant to get to their destination. They come barreling along Greers Road and then there's the squeal of rubber as they brake, followed by a slow progression into our street.

As we're only a few houses from the corner, we also have a lovely light display as they pull into our driveway only to reverse out again and turn back to wherever the hell they came from.

We did have a moment of consternation, and both stopped what we were doing, as a police car siren heralded from further down the road. We waited to see what would happen. Would it continue forward and bowl through the repair work (as they did appear to have left one lane open for emergency entrance and egress) or would it skid to a halt as the bad guys got away? It turned off the siren and crept around onto our street, exactly the same as every other driver. The siren never went back on so I presume it wasn't that important after all.

Bring on the 16th. Or the 17th if they're not quite running to schedule. Or sometime next week maybe.