LOOKS LIKE A BUILDING SITE
Shaftesbury has grown since I last parked up opposite the eastern development adjacent to the A30 and had a proper look. Red brick houses have sprung up like mushrooms within their scaffold-pole shells. Some of the new homes that were “coming soon” are already here.
I met an old mate from Sunday morning football days in the supermarket recently. He’s in town, a labourer on this site of transformation.
“I’m back and concreting over Shaftesbury,” he tells me cynically.
“How’s it going?” I ask genuinely.
He lifts his right boot and looks down. It’s sodden and mud-covered up almost to his knee. His phone rings. It’s “the Missus.”
“I better take this,” says our one-time centre-forward, and he turns away.
He’ll be wet today for sure. It feels as though its been raining forever. Yesterday had some of the heaviest I can recall, unabated from overnight until 2pm. Even after that it was on and off before it set in again. Everywhere looks gloomy and a mess when the weather is so atrociously bad; a building site is no exception.
It’s 2pm now. I can see a couple of guys in hi-viz and hard-hats slapping on outside walls two storeys high. An engine starts. Orange safety light on machinery flashes periodically through the emerging new-build. Surface water streams out of the metalled access road to become the filthy spray of passing traffic.
Copyright, Joe Hashman www.dirtynails.co.uk
Tags: a30, december, rain, shaftesbury