Friday 11 September 2020

HS2 still dragging their feet

 Not much to report really - Joe and Sophie came round for a BBQ on Wednesday with Henry and Jessica as Joe had at last finished the combining. We also missed both their Birthday's because of the harvest so it was a double celebration.



 The horses are trundling along nicely. We crossed paths with Alex Hales string this morning on our hack and Garry grew two hands and loves to show off, he already looks quite 'racey' . Whereas Porky Secret was only mildly interested and didn't bother to hold her tummy in.  Bless her. She is a typical Getaway in that they can seem very calm and 'ploddy' one moment but then get them up the gallops and suddenly they change into a racehorse. We hope!

Would you believe we still haven't heard a word from HS2? This is after promising that they would not slow down the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) and after daily calls from our solicitor to request the pre-action contract. We have less than three months to find somewhere else to live and yet we cannot even start looking for somewhere until this has been resolved. They clearly have no intention of honouring their agreement and are trying to slow things down as much as possible to starve us out.

In the meantime at Blackgrounds the security men at the top of the drive have a little more to do now as the fencing boys are here fencing off the railway site. It is laughable to watch.  There is a group of seven men doing no more than 300 metres of fencing and they have taken two weeks so far. They still haven't finished as they all downed tools at lunchtime today.  Doug, who would have finished the same job with one other person would have finished it in two days. When he asked them why they don't use more efficient tools (like a staple gun) to get the job done more quickly. The answer was "No mate - We don't want to finish too quickly as we're on a day rate"!  All out of tax payers money....