Like many others, I am so tired of this lockdown. Like not so many others, I am also extremely ‘tyred’ of this lockdown. Although I’ve yet to see a deserted road since March 27, being part of the media has meant lofty ‘essential services’ status from Day 1. So, we’ve been allowed on the road, legally. Which has been good.
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But not all the roads have been good. Like the D440, the one that links Izotsha and Shelly Beach – you know, the one that goes up past Creston, Dezzi’s and comes out kind of near Skogheim. At the risk of sounding ungrateful for the fact that we do in fact have roads to drive on, it seems these blasted potholes have been at work during the lockdown. They seem deeper than ever, complete with an evil grin. Okay, that could have been the morning sunlight. Very warm sunlight it has to be said for mid-May.
One of those potholes sliced a swathe through my almost brand new tyre. I could have wept.
If it were not for the fact that I was sitting on a grass bank at the entrance to Hillbillion and cars were driving past I think I would have. The tyre was not even three days old. It hadn’t done more than 50km.
What happened was I angled the vehicle a touch to the right to avoid a bomb crater and clipped a nasty sharp edge of some igneous rock that had no business being so close to the surface of the earth. Every South African knows the feeling of hitting a pothole, but there’s a different sound when there’s a puncture. I know because a similar thing happened a week or so before lockdown. Just not having too much luck.
So, the moment I heard that sound – somehow it seems less loud but more solid – I knew I was in for a frustrating morning. Unfortunately, the tyre was a write-off. I could only laugh at the humour of the guys at the tyre place. “Haven’t you just been here for a puncture? Wait, wasn’t your wife here last week for new tyres??”
Oh well, I guess in some small way we helped keep our local economy ticking over. And ticking it needs, and rather urgently, it has to be said.
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