Post by anglais on Oct 6, 2022 9:21:25 GMT
It was on Tuesday and it hasn't gone down yet.
Before you start thinking if have been popping those little blue pills, its not me, but the house. Or outside the house to be exact. We have a new Telegraph pole.
As Sarah, Will and KP will testify the amount of telephone lines, power lines and street lighting cables that criss-cross Route de Paulet is quite ridiculous. It more resembles a street scene from downtown Baghdad or Karachi. When you consider that this only serves 3 houses in Geriatric Corner and the two houses in Paulet, which is 100 yards up the road it really is excessive.
France Telecom have spent the last year or so replacing telegraph poles, cables and installing fibre optics in the drains. And it has been a disaster. As wooden poles have rotted the have been left lying on verges and fields, and sometimes the cables have even been attached to trees.
The first we knew about it was on Monday when a chappie came along and sprayed our telegraph pole, which is next to our garage bright orange and F7 on the road with and arrow pointing to said pole. The Lunatic Ballards pole is on the opposite side of the road from his house and is F6. That the two poles are on opposite sides of the road explains why all the cables traverse the road. Our pole also serves the two house opposite.
When we first moved here our telegraph pole stood proud and erect. But the weight of all the cables going 100 yards to the next pole at the Lunatics caused it to lean. The answer was to put a brace in to stop it falling. But instead of putting it on the side in compression they put it on the other side so the telegraph pole continued to lean even further. Then they had the genius idea to take the brace out and put in a steel hawser anchored to a concrete block joined to the domestic waste drain. It stopped the telegraph tole leaning in line with the cables, but instead it started to lean sideways too so now it was going in two planes.
On Tuesday a huge installation lorry ground up the road with 5 new lampposts on it pointing to the sky like Howitzer barrels and promptly bought down the cables between our pole and the Lunatics. Luckily the Electrical guys were following and soon had it untangled and set up so we had a phone line. The truck had a crane and an attached auger bit and they got drilling at the Lunatics a nice new pole was installed in no time at all. Then they reversed down the road, this time getting the crane tangled up. They untangled it, then promptly tangled it all up again trying to position the Auger to drill the hole. I sat on the garden wall with the Lunatic watching the proceedings with amusement.
Finally getting it untangled they drilled the hole in about 20 seconds flat. It took about an hour to get the pole in the hole as, you guessed it, they tangled the pole in the cables.
Watching them get the pole was erect was a master class in geometry. They used a plumb line against the side of the pole. I pointed out to them that as the pole tapers from 12 inches dia. at the base to about 4 inches at the top a plumb line wouldn't work. The chap was adamant he knew what he was doing. The Lunatic tried his best to explain as his French is infinitely better than mine to no avail
Then they buggered off for their statutary 2 hours lunch. The electrical guy returned after lunch with a cherry picker and installed the cables on the Lunatics pole. He then came down to us to work on ours. There are 3 big junction boxes about a meter long attached to our pole with twisted wire. He took them off letting all the cables dangle across the road, proclaimed he had finished for the day and was on strike as from the next day and had no idea when would return. He departed after leaving no entry signs at either end of the road.
So we have a nice new pole, albeit leaning rather precariously, in a lovely composite material, printed to look like wood.
And the cables are still lying on the road, and traffic has got fed up and are now using the road. Luckily car tyres are made of rubber.
And the Internet and phone are holding up for the moment.
Before you start thinking if have been popping those little blue pills, its not me, but the house. Or outside the house to be exact. We have a new Telegraph pole.
As Sarah, Will and KP will testify the amount of telephone lines, power lines and street lighting cables that criss-cross Route de Paulet is quite ridiculous. It more resembles a street scene from downtown Baghdad or Karachi. When you consider that this only serves 3 houses in Geriatric Corner and the two houses in Paulet, which is 100 yards up the road it really is excessive.
France Telecom have spent the last year or so replacing telegraph poles, cables and installing fibre optics in the drains. And it has been a disaster. As wooden poles have rotted the have been left lying on verges and fields, and sometimes the cables have even been attached to trees.
The first we knew about it was on Monday when a chappie came along and sprayed our telegraph pole, which is next to our garage bright orange and F7 on the road with and arrow pointing to said pole. The Lunatic Ballards pole is on the opposite side of the road from his house and is F6. That the two poles are on opposite sides of the road explains why all the cables traverse the road. Our pole also serves the two house opposite.
When we first moved here our telegraph pole stood proud and erect. But the weight of all the cables going 100 yards to the next pole at the Lunatics caused it to lean. The answer was to put a brace in to stop it falling. But instead of putting it on the side in compression they put it on the other side so the telegraph pole continued to lean even further. Then they had the genius idea to take the brace out and put in a steel hawser anchored to a concrete block joined to the domestic waste drain. It stopped the telegraph tole leaning in line with the cables, but instead it started to lean sideways too so now it was going in two planes.
On Tuesday a huge installation lorry ground up the road with 5 new lampposts on it pointing to the sky like Howitzer barrels and promptly bought down the cables between our pole and the Lunatics. Luckily the Electrical guys were following and soon had it untangled and set up so we had a phone line. The truck had a crane and an attached auger bit and they got drilling at the Lunatics a nice new pole was installed in no time at all. Then they reversed down the road, this time getting the crane tangled up. They untangled it, then promptly tangled it all up again trying to position the Auger to drill the hole. I sat on the garden wall with the Lunatic watching the proceedings with amusement.
Finally getting it untangled they drilled the hole in about 20 seconds flat. It took about an hour to get the pole in the hole as, you guessed it, they tangled the pole in the cables.
Watching them get the pole was erect was a master class in geometry. They used a plumb line against the side of the pole. I pointed out to them that as the pole tapers from 12 inches dia. at the base to about 4 inches at the top a plumb line wouldn't work. The chap was adamant he knew what he was doing. The Lunatic tried his best to explain as his French is infinitely better than mine to no avail
Then they buggered off for their statutary 2 hours lunch. The electrical guy returned after lunch with a cherry picker and installed the cables on the Lunatics pole. He then came down to us to work on ours. There are 3 big junction boxes about a meter long attached to our pole with twisted wire. He took them off letting all the cables dangle across the road, proclaimed he had finished for the day and was on strike as from the next day and had no idea when would return. He departed after leaving no entry signs at either end of the road.
So we have a nice new pole, albeit leaning rather precariously, in a lovely composite material, printed to look like wood.
And the cables are still lying on the road, and traffic has got fed up and are now using the road. Luckily car tyres are made of rubber.
And the Internet and phone are holding up for the moment.
