Access Denied

I've been vague, at best, lately. Out of it. Absent. Fuddled. Tired. Worn out. Cranky. Grumpy. Appointments that need to be made, haven't. Phone calls to make, left unmade. Commitments re-negotiated. And I blame this.

That was once our street. It has been dug out a metre deep in some spots. The road was just that dodgy. Further down the street they have only needed to take off the old road surface, for our section they would take off a layer, three men in business shirts teamed with pristine clean hi-vis vests would walk around and feel the earth, pat it, rub it, run it through their fingers, kick clumps of it, then signal the digger to take off another layer. It would have been funny if I wasn't freaking out.

I know that I need to make the decision to be either cranky and grumpy or happy and loving... it's just hard. The constant beeping of trucks reversing. Never knowing if we will have access to our house each day. Knowing that even if we have access in the morning I may just come home half way through the day with kids sleeping in the car and find that I have to park 3 streets away and walk (I didn't, I went and picked up the key for mum's house and went there). Being told that it will be two days without access as they do the road and then two days without access when they do the kerb and channel and then having 6 days without access just for the road and the BEST warning we got was the afternoon before, some days it was a knock on the door just after 6am telling us to move the car if we wanted to use it that day and then one day it was no warning at all. Road Closed signs being left up after work finished the day of the boys birthday party so our guests walked for three streets when they didn't need to. Near misses as we negotiate our way through the incoming trucks of dirt and outgoing trucks of old road. The council not following through on their promise of traffic controllers for the work site.

What I should be thinking about... the entertainment for the kids as they watch the huge machinery working. Their excitement at having machines like this...

parked right outside our house. The fact that we are FINALLY getting a new street (in the last weeks of each pregnancy I have tried my best to lift my butt off the seat as we drove along our street because it was so bumpy and in the early weeks it would make me want to throw up bumping along the street). That it has slowed down a lot of the cars that like to fly down the street and zoom around the cul-de-sac without a care for the kids that live on the street. I have had good reason to be running the air-con this early in the Summer to keep the dirt out of our house and lungs so we are staying nice and cool. That my friends care enough to offer their guest rooms to the boys and I if we need to escape for the day but still be by ourselves. That my parents live in the same town so we can crash at their place if we need to.

****

I started this days ago then Telstra cut off our phone and internet over a long running problem they caused but somehow expect me to be able to magically fix. I lost an hour of time with my kids while I was on the phone trying to sort that out yet again (they keep telling me it's solved, our phone will be reconnected at their expense blah blah blah and it happens again and again and yesterday they actually cancelled our contract so we lost our email address (thankfully not the one we give out) and I got really angry and yelled at the poor girl trying to help me which made me feel terrible) and then yesterday I went to go home after bible study and our street was cut off further away than it has been before and again without warning and so I was at mums and you know what... I'm cranky with the council but I've had a reminder that life's not so bad.

I was talking to a friend and she was telling me about a little boy she knows who can no longer trust a parent and step parent. Two people who should have his best interests at heart have hurt him and lost his trust... you know what, my frustration at Telstra and the local Council is a minor issue.