My new year has not started well. Last night at 2300 I heard three muffled thumps. On investigation I found that a car had hit my garden wall. We're on a crossroads, he'd been going fast and hadn't made the corner. He legged it, but the polis got him and charged him with drunk driving. Hanging around in the wind and drizzle until the polis re-appeared at 0100 to take statements / give incident reference was not fun. The impact has left coping stones on the pavement and around 12m of wall have been damaged - the corner impact has pushed stones sideways on the flanking wall. This is particularly annoying since we got the wall fixed up as part of major house repairs last year. It's all 110 year old sandstone and some stones have been broken. Getting new replacements is not going to be easy - very few Scottish quarries still exist. SWMBO gets back from Belfast later today and will be delighted to hear of this - not.
Today SWMBO & I manoeuvred the fallen coping stones (bloody heavy) off the footpath and into the garden using a mattock and a sack barrow, and stabilised the remaining loose stones so that they won't fall out if a kid grabs one. Great fun in a damp gale!
Phone call from the Fiscal's office. Three charges of road traffic offences and one of attempting to pervert the course of justice. He's out on bail, the trial is set for April, and I'm likely to be wanted as a witness if he doesn't plead guilty. Deep joy.
