Last Tuesday with no warning jack hammers started tearing up our street beginning on our side at the end of the block.  This was followed a couple of days later with a front end loader that was breaking up the cement and loading it onto large trucks.  Quickly we and all our neighbors snapped to the fact that we were not going to be able to get out of our driveways.  Duh!  My daughter and I raced off to the city office to complain and ask what were we to do.  We have a curfew in our neighborhood that no one can park on the street after midnight until 6 a.m.  The city secretary (it is a small village) apologized, explaining that the contractors showed up 3 weeks early before they could get notices out.  Our choices are to park at the end of the street (a pain in the you-know-what if you are hauling groceries) with a promise of no tickets or to buddy up with our neighbors across the street either in their driveways or on the easement between the curb and sidewalk.  Oh lovely!  I knew I would hear from my neighbor across the street...the realtor put a For Sale sign in her front yard the day the jack hammers started.  She offered her double driveway which would handle two of our cars but not the third.  She begged me not to park on her easement and I agreed to try though if I wanted, it is legal as the city owns the easement.  So far that is what we are doing with one car going on the easement to the house next door to her.

But the problem is our street is now one way and crossing the broken up concrete and dirt to get to the other side of the street is tricky for us old fragile folk.  So we are being very careful, very, very careful.  This is supposed to go on until Aug 14.  I'm just glad our street is the first of 17 and will most likely be finished complete with new and better drainage before any possible hurricane threat.  But right now it discourages any unnecessary trips out or company coming in.  I don't think my neighbor is going to get many house lookers until this is all over.