Blessing in disguise

I expected some inconvenience this week when the local water company warned me and my neighbours in the street that it was planning to close the road . . . not just for a few days, but for eight weeks!
So at either end of the road you are met with barriers like this, and though you can pick your way through to get in and out, it is most definitely closed for through traffic.
The reason, says the water company is to replace an old cast iron water main with new high performance plastic pipe which it assures us will provide a secure water supply well into the future and avoid the need for further repairs in the road. When the mains pipe is in place, the water company will need to replace individual pipes between the main and the street boundary of each property.
So some disruption was likely to be expected . . . but for the moment, with much less traffic using the road, it’s heaven, and the absence  of noise from trucks, cars and bikes which use the road as a through route from one part of the village to another, is sheer bliss.  On the village outskirts agricultural land is used for intensive farming, and in normal circumstances we could expect a steady stream of refrigerated trucks using the road each day to reach the farms to collect soft fruits and other produce.
But the Highways Department promised a diversion while the water company went about its work, and sure enough that’s in place. We haven’t seen a refrigerated truck in the road all week.
So what might have been an annoying inconvenience, has so far become a blessing.

But that’s life in the country.