Don't get me wrong but...

I like What Ifs.

There is no end to them, and various of them will keep me out of mischief for ages.

So What If – Nobody had invented tarmac? What if the world were exactly the same, just without tarmac?

The important roads would have been surfaced – The Romans would have seen to that! The Romans were really good at roads. For a start they made them straight.

First they decided where they wanted to go, and then they sent out some men with poles, reckoning if the poles were in line then the road was straight. I wonder what happened if they got to the far end and discovered that they should have gone left a bit 20 miles ago?

I’ll allow our modern road builders compasses; that way they are less likely to miss their target – it’s easier to move a road than a whole town, just because someone swatted a fly during lunchtime yesterday and their pole fell down. Then we’ve got to build our road. First we have to dig a bed for it to sit on. No problem; the Spanish love their diggers, they would be delighted.

That was the easy bit. Now we have to surface it. First big stones, then smaller stones, and lastly gravel or if it’s a really posh road little square stones, like the ones down the main road through Albox*.

Diggers have no problems – diggers can go pretty much anywhere, and if they get stuck they simply dig themselves out of trouble. But lorries carrying stones? Not so much! The lorries would have to be small enough and light enough not to make ruts in the earth bed of the road. So it would have to be small lorries with not very many big stones in them coming on-site a lot more times. I can see the natives getting restless at the constant comings and goings of traffic. Assuming that the big stones are all securely bedded, not wobbly or too bumpy, it’s time for the smaller stones. Compared to the troubles we’ve had with the big stones this is a piece of cake!

Except that a man will come along with his school geometry set to measure the height of the road – it has to be higher in the middle so that rain (what rain?) can run off. He would have to be attended by a man with a pick and a shovel, so that any irregularities of height can be rectified there and then. I bet those two were really unpopular – ‘Oh, don’t be such a jobsworth, it’s good enough for now!’

Then lastly come the gravel layers. Dead easy! But someone has to spread the gravel. Spreading gravel on a patch of garden is one thing, but spreading gravel from here to Vera – That’s another!

Then the digger men come back to create a little pavement on the sides of the road so that the gravel doesn’t wash off when it rains. (Rains?) If you’ve done all that, and you’ve just sat back to admire a good job jobbed you will not be pleased if the Mayor then turns up, looks at your lovely new road, and says ‘I wanted bricks.’ I think if he says that he is quite likely not to get re-elected!

* Reading this back I can’t help thinking about the main road through Albox – it is appalling! Go get the man with the geometry set to smooth it all out!!