No… not the name of a cheesy pop band – but a description of my drive home from work last week when I had the nightmare journey from hell as I tried to get home from North Manchester to South Manchester. The motorway was busy – as usual – but the weather conditions were horrendous. Torrential rain like it was the end of the world… windscreen wipers just couldn’t cope with the deluge being thrown down.

Getting nearer to Glossop things just went from bad, to worse – standing water on the roads, drains blocked, cars stranded …just unbelievable. I eventually got home having taken about three hours to cover the last three miles of my journey.

Once I had dried off and calmed down, Mrs C started asking what had caused these problems and whether this was just a freak one off occurrence…

So why was it so bad??

Global warming?

Brexit…?

Trump…?

Hurricane Albert or whatever they’ve called the latest storm…?

I’m guessing it’s a more prosaic answer of ….local authority cutbacks??

If you get heavy leaf fall and nobody sweeps them out of the drains – then the drains will get blocked….simple.

If you don’t cut the edges of the highway then the leaves will get caught in the road verge and block the gulley’s designed to take water away from the road side …simple.

Life is actually really simple – if you have the money to do things properly.

Unfortunately this no longer seems to be the case with local authority maintenance teams and all the services we once took for granted.

How come nobody realises that all these little services that get axed – WERE THERE FOR A BLOODY REASON…!!!!

Mike C