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THERE'S A SMALL clutch of manholes in the road outside our house. In fact manholes may be an exaggeration, as well as being rather sexist. They’re more dwarf holes, or rather person-of-restricted-growth holes. One of them goes Ka-Chank, just like a train going over points, when a car crosses over it.

You can’t quite predict if it’ll happen since, being a porghole, it’s not very big and there’s an even chance that any passing car may not hit it. It’s most apparent during the stillness of the night. A vehicle is released by the traffic lights further up and joyfully accelerates down the road. You hear its engine get louder as it approaches and then it swishes by. That’s fine - part of modern life, no more intrusive than wind in the trees or the rattle of rain on the skylight. But there’s an even chance the wheels will hit the particular porghole cover that goes Ka-Chank and it will go Ka-Chank, loudly.

For all I know it may have Ka-Chanked away for years but only recently did it impinge upon my consciousness. I also made the mistake of pointing it out to my spouse. Now we wait for it. And it’s almost as bad when a car misses the thing as hits it because it leaves matters unresolved.

I examined it the other day. The road is a wondrous thing in itself. In the surface outside our house there are 13 separate seams of tarmac across its width where it has been patched over the years. The porghole swarm lies in a little depression of its own. I jumped on all three; one rocked and emitted a very faint ka-chank. It has ‘Brickhouse’ written on its cover. I found a fragment of plastic and tried to wedge it into a crack to stop it moving but the gap was too narrow and a large tractor dragging a trailer laden with dung was thundering down the road towards me so I had to skip aside. That’s probably as far as my attempts to alleviate the problem will go. With a bit of luck we’ll stop noticing again in a few days.

* * * *

Back in days of yore we were told we were to have a wonderful new thing in Aberfeldy that would cost £20 million. It wasn’t just a school but a college with a campus for the whole community and everyone had to put in ideas about what should be on it. I’ve just about forgotten now, but there was to be a library, a police station and all sorts of other delights. It was due to start being built in the summer holidays of 2005.

Jolly good, we thought, although it would be pretty unpleasant for a couple of years for the residents of west Aberfeldy while it was constructed. We’d be right in the middle of it. It’s just as well we weren’t thinking of selling up, as planning blight would affect us, and affect scores of others in the neighbourhood.

We inputted our input when the plans were put up by the competing contractors and waited to hear which one was to be chosen. Vast amounts of time were spent by some of the teachers to ensure the result would work and the disruption to existing pupils would be minimized. A whole new temporary school was to be built somewhere down Alma Avenue while the builders built.

And that was it really. Nothing has happened. As far as I know, nothing has been decided. No start date has been given. Ask and you will be told that something will be announced ‘soon’. And soon has been the position for months. It seems that the earliest that anything can now begin is 2008. By that time the estimated cost will have risen; the bidding contractors will have to revise their prices, and that will lead to even more delays.

With the best will in the world, the situation is shambolic. This is our money being spent in our community for our benefit. We pay the salaries of the officials within the Council in charge of the project. If they’re not in charge, then we also pay all the Executive’s salaries as well. As their paymasters, at the very least we should be given precise reasons for the hold up, and precise reasons why a start date cannot be given. And given the information now.

* * * *

I downloaded Google Earth the other day. It’s only recently that it’s been available for Apple Macs. For technophobes, this allows you to view the entire planet from the air. You can purr round the globe a mile or two up, or dive to skim the surface from a few hundred feet. In many places you can go zoom right in. My daughter, for example, has moved her wheelie bin. It used to be outside her back door in West Hampstead and now it’s not.

Highland Perthshire is not resolved in anything like the detail of London and similar important places. We’re a rather pleasant blur and individual houses cannot be determined. If possible, the wise amongst us will always choose to buy a house within the blur. Otherwise you’ll never quite know who’s peering into the back garden or, in a year or two, through the bedroom window.

I’ve just noticed that if you wish to spend $400, the whole world is available in all its detail. I’ve always wanted some decent aerial shots of the back of Schiehallion for an overview of the shieling remains there. I once came across the remains of a cottage in Glen Mor and have never been able to find it again. This system sounds as if it’ll provide me with the answers. You can get a free trial for seven days but it won’t work on a Mac, so if anyone is willing to sign up to the free trial, I’d love a look over their shoulder.

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