TRAVELLERS<\/em><\/h3>\nAfter a further five minutes of digging, Jimmy raised one eyebrow, causing his brow to pucker. Something didn\u2019t sit right. Every time he dragged his bucket back, it scraped on something which, at a glance, didn\u2019t look like metal or plastic, but wasn\u2019t sandstone either. An experienced digger driver like Jimmy was like an artist. He could feel the soil and the rock and the obstructions through the hydraulic levers that he manipulated with just the tips of his fingers. He couldn\u2019t see what was causing the blockage because each time he scooped out sandstone, a stream of crumbled soil ran back into the hole to cover the obstruction. Jimmy jumped down from his cab, grabbed a shovel, and dropped down into the hole. He scraped at the loose earth and shovelled it to one side.<\/em><\/p>\nWhat he found was something with a smooth surface that looked like some sort of plastic, but which shimmered and flashed a little in the sunlight. A bit like glittery unicorn dust when his six-year-old daughter had finished playing with her make-up kit. The only trouble was that this unicorn dust held no bright colours. It was black as night, yet reflected the sunlight. Jimmy rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. Flashing black light wasn\u2019t something his brain could unscramble. And whatever the object was, it was rounded. Not a small pipe like a standard 100mm or 150mm uPVC drain. If it was something circular, it was far bigger than that, judging from the slow radius.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cEverything alright, Jimmy?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe voice belonged to Stitcher, the site foreman. Not many knew his real name, but everyone called him Stitcher on account of the fact that a surgeon had thrown his heart away and given him a new one from a donor in Manchester. When sewing him back up, the surgeon had left Cecil English with a considerable scar and a new nickname.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cYeah, I guess everything\u2019s okay,\u201d Jimmy said, \u201cbut damned if I know what this is, and close up it\u2019s got these dark flashes bouncing round on it to it. There\u2019s some weird shit going on here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nStitcher peered down into the hole. He had been a digger driver himself in his day, so knew that there was nothing unusual about getting out of the cab to take a closer look at the dig. \u201cIt looks like it\u2019s plastic from here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cTrue, but I\u2019m now four feet down in virgin sandstone. How would something plastic get here?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cYou mean it\u2019s not old backfill that you\u2019ve been digging out?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cNo. Apart from a bit of topsoil, I\u2019ve pulled out nothing but unspoiled sandstone so far. There\u2019s no signs of any previous digging and filling. But that doesn\u2019t make sense since plastic has only been used in the building trade for the last fifty years. How does something big and plastic turn up under four feet of virgin sandstone? And what the hell are these flashes of black light?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cDamned if I know, old son. Black light doesn\u2019t make sense. It was just public toilets here before we began digging, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cToilets, sailors\u2019 shelter, the yacht club, some old garages and a storage yard. Demolition team got rid of them all in a week flat. The sailors\u2019 shelter and the yacht club have been relocated down the side of the marina and they plan building new public loos when this new treatment plant is finished. The demolition guys cleared all the rubble away and left us with a clean site. One of the easiest to work on too, being right next to the promenade. I\u2019ve already ripped out all the drains that served the old buildings. They were less than a couple of feet down.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cCould it be a septic tank or cesspit?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cNo. Like I say, I\u2019m pulling out virgin rock. Stitcher. Whatever it is, it wasn\u2019t buried here and covered over again. It sort of grew here!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cYou sure of that?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cPositive. Come take a look yourself.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cNo, I trust your judgment, Jimmy. Why not dig round the thing for the moment? See how far it goes and how deep. That way we\u2019ll get some idea of size and can decide what to do with it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nJimmy knelt down and slowly moved his hand towards the object, expecting to get an electric shock at any moment. But his hand passed through the layer of black flashes with nothing more than a slight tingle. He tapped on the plastic. \u201cSounds hollow. There\u2019s a sort of echo. Do we need to call anyone?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cNo, let\u2019s expose it a bit first, then we can decide.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve banged it a few times with the bucket. What happens if I damage it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nStitcher laughed. \u201cI\u2019ve seen you get your bucket to within a centimetre of an object, Jimmy. The only reason you\u2019d damage something is if you meant to. Perhaps best we take a bit of care now we know it\u2019s there, eh?\u201d
\n<\/em><\/p>\n \n<\/p>
Book cover design by Bruno Cavellec, Copyright \u00a9 Bruno Cavellec 2018.
\nImage used and published according to the licence granted by the artist<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019ve followed this blog, you\u2019ll be aware that I mix personal interest with purely food and culinary content. One of my hobbies is writing and my fourteenth book called \u2018Travellers\u2019 has been released. It’s the tenth book in ‘The Island Connection’ series. Here\u2019s a bit about it. Travellers Travellers arrive unseen and stay hidden … Continue reading Travellers<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,27,61],"tags":[122,31,107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/needarecipe.com\/food-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Travellers](\"http:\/\/graham-hamer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/3D-214x300.jpg\")