Roads to Joy

The strong steel gate in our new-to-us driveway has served primarily as a barrier, to keep the friendly family dogs safely within the garden, over the past year. But it’s also been a barrier, or at least a huge hindrance even when fully open, to convenient entrance and egress by our ancient motorhome, Harry Hymer. And therein lies today’s joy.

Not in the successful utilisation of a reconfigured gate, not yet anyway. But in our successful removal of gate and post, adding an extra 15-20 cm (6-9 inches in old money) to the width of the drive. It doesn’t sound like much, but when the cm gap on either side before the post was extracted is considered, such that edging poor old Harry backwards out onto the road was a matter of some thirty minutes of careful twisting and turning of the steering wheel, forward and backward creeping, and constant vigilance between driver and watcher on either end of our mobile phones, then those precious extra cm feel like a wide open space!

The gate post created a pinch point between its position and that of the soil pipe running down the side of the house, that also extends into the driveway. This pinch point meant that Harry could not be moved straight back, but instead had to be jockeyed about to navigate the small dogleg turning before the driveway straightens out again onto the road. Now that the pinch point has gone, Harry should back straight out. Thank goodness for large angle-grinders and an expeditious cutting of the thick steel post! It turned out, when we assessed the depth of the hollow part remaining, we’d have had to dig down nearly a meter and a half to free the post, around its circlet of concrete, if we hadn’t been able to cut it off underneath the gravel.

Joy enough, surely, and a feeling that kept me exclaiming throughout the day at the new freedom we’d achieved. But freedom for Harry comes at a cost, and that cost is unrestricted freedom for the family dogs. If they visit before we re-hang the gate, they’ll not be able to run free in the garden, for fear of their escape to the road beyond.

Our strategy, then, is to extend the gate some 300 mm, and to hang it on the rebated wall of the original Victorian villa we’ve acquired as our new home. This strategy evolved from a variety of different ideas, and finally the welder, the handyman, and I have agreed that this tactic will work nicely. The welder will create a long fixing plate to attach to the wall, on the rear side, so that the extended gate will open backwards, as it were, and will be closed by means of a drop-bolt into a galvanised tube carefully positioned within the empty space of the remaining post, which will be concreted tight. Open, there will be no obstruction for Harry’s passage, as he’ll roll right over the concrete pad on the ground. Closed, the gate will be just as tightly shut as it ever has been, and escape-proof for dogs.

It may seem rather remarkable to be investing such effort in keeping the dogs safe — we ourselves could live without the gate as barrier for the rest of our lives — but for family peace of mind, it’s got to be worth it.

So a gate that, ultimately, swings both ways, and certainly opens and closes, can afford us joy when it’s open and our way through is clear, and joy when it’s shut and the family dogs are safely sequestered. That feels like incredible value as we balance cost against received joy, and it will be a lovely day when the thing is re-hung and positioned again to do its duty in a much better way.