They’re After Me!

Back in March and April those of you that come back for regular updates on the sorry state of my life here in Amsterdam will know that I’ve been harassed since December by the road works out side my house. You’ll also know that not only have they been using bloody noisy jack hammers but they have been using them both day and night. Well, the works outside my house were due to finish at the end of May, just as I was due to return to England. However, I agreed to stay another three months and so they have very kindly agreed to keep the heavy machinery on a little longer. The pavement still isn’t finished but I have to say that most of the night time activity has stopped and the rest of it is just a little inconvenient.

But they have now decided that I need more incentive to leave and so the ROC School Amsterdam have decided to build some accommodation for foreign students. They have decided that the best place to build this is right outside my office window… Yes, that’s my windows in the redish building on the left of this photo. I sit just across from the corner window on the second floor. That is the large window, bottom right, above the light grey part of the building. They started by drilling large holes in the ground. Kinda like having a large, industrial mole in the garden. I’m guessing here, but I think that they must have drilled about 40, 50ft deep holes. Slightly annoying for a few days, but we can live with that kind of activity in the neighbourhood without due concern. Once the mole had left they then brought in the serious machinery. This next beast is the one that is going to fill the holes. But it’s not going to just pour concrete in or even bash poles into the ground as is common. No, this machine bashes a tube into the ground, fills the tube with concrete and reinforcing steel and then bashes the tube out of the ground again. I assume that the second set of bashing is either there just to annoy us or some pathetic reason such as ensuring that all the concrete settles into the hole. Who knows. Anyway, for those of you wishing to have a little sympathy for yours truly, this is what it does all day. And yes, we can feel the ground move.