At 7.30 on Wednesday

At 7.30 on Wednesday morning I walked up from feeding the animals and noticed that the road looked strange. It looked as if someone had piled gravel over it in a line in the middle of the night. As I walked closer, I realized that nothing so simple or wacky had happened but that, in fact, the entire road had collapsed over about a 15-metre length. A sense of slow shock set in as I got nearer and went to look. The field below the road had suffered a huge landslip and just dragged the road down with it. The photos say it better than words really.

Water pipe rescued. Note tilting electricity pole.

Miraculously our water pipe, which was in the bit of land that shifted, was undamaged. Our Digger Man and all-round saviour, Filippo, and his crew have now dug it out and re-routed it above ground, so at least we now can stop worrying that our water will be cut off as the land slips more. 

Things always improve when the men in orange reflective vests take over.

Four days after the initial landslip, the area of damage is deeper, wider and longer. We have been told the road can't be repaired till the ground has dried out and settled, which pretty much means next summer. Unthinkable that our house be inaccessible by car for nine months, so Filippo has hatched a plan to cut us a new, temporary road bypassing the landslip on its top edge. Meantime we don wellies and trudge over the mud of the ex-road and slog up the hill to reach the car parked at the top, where we change back into normal clothes and try to re-enter the rest of the world, where people just walk out of their front doors, get in their cars, and go.

Herbie tests the metal duckboards.