The Aston Abbotts’ Sinkhole

Publishing an online account of the events following the appearance of a Sinkhole in a small village in Buckinghamshire to raise money for a very good cause.  The residents of the village found its contents amusing – I hope you do too.

Story

I do feel a bit of a charlatan when it comes to raising money for Comic Relief.  I cannot compete at all with the huge number of endurance feats being undertaken by many, more worthy, fundraisers.  I’d like to think that if I wasn’t an overweight mid-sixties shirker, I would don my hiking boots for a sponsored walk from Lands End to John O’Groats.  According to Google Maps the route is about 815 miles - that means if I average between 11 and 12 miles a day, I should be able to do it in about 72 days.  But it ain’t gonna happen!

So, instead, I’ve dedicated 72 days to another form of endurance - I have been forced to observe the events that arose following the sudden appearance of a sinkhole in the road right outside our house at the beginning of January.  A dedicated team of workers with a vast array of equipment managed to complete the repair just in time for Red Nose Day.   The sinkhole was caused by a collapsed sewer - the repair of which resulted in the excavation of a huge hole that was about 2m by 10m (to put that into context, the size of hole was approximately one billionth the size of Wales).

Over this period, I took to keeping the residents of the village informed of the goings-on by posting updates on a local blog.  I have decided to collate these blogs into an account for publication on-line and hope that you will enjoy its contents.  If you do, I’d appreciate if you could dig deep into your pockets to raise some money for Comic Relief.  And if you don’t enjoy it then I won’t be offended if you take pity on me and donate something anyway.

By the way, the publication is called “The Origin of Faeces” (or, for the full title, “On the Origin of Faeces by Means of Digging Big Holes”).

Thanks go to all the maintenance workers who, through the trials and tribulations of the freezing weather and the challenges of an unforgiving geology, managed to repair the collapsed sewer and provided the inspiration for this short publication.

Many thanks for visiting this page  - “The Origin of Faeces” can be downloaded in PDF format at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lbAfJyZPn7WFgwD5YH4IGM7UoJV8w79r/view?usp=sharing