Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Baldwin Street



We do live on the steepest street in the world so things can get interesting at times. There are a number of photos of crashed cars as well as a plethora of weird and wonderful happenings, some of which predate us and some of which I have witnessed over the seven years we have lived here and the 30 odd years I have spent in the Valley.

There is the Jaffa race of course. That is a yearly event in July and coincides with the chocolate festival. There were two races this year - one with the normal orange jaffas and one with lilac ones to celebrate the 10th year of the race. We scored some chocolate to compensate for the inconvenience of having our street access blocked for half a day. I'm not sure on the numbers but it was standing room only - estimated at about 8 thousand.

In the last year there have been two car incidents. Neither were serious fortunately. The first was tourists who lost it further up and took out a large chunk of railing, garden and left a big hole in the neighbour's hedge. The second was some nitwit trying to do a u-turn after light rain on the very steepest bit. He wrote his car off on a lamp post (which was undamaged and so was he).

There was the idiot sliding down the street in a recycle bin (not a wheelie bin) which broke. I reported that one as it wasn't their bin and they cost to replace. And finally there was the stupid teen who was riding down on his bike without using his hands - he ended up under a parked car with some fairly nasty injuries but fortunately not fatal or permanent damage. Just broken bones and gravel rash.

On a happier note there was a segway -I think there's a video on u tube - an electric wheelchair, a pair of stilts, a pogo stick and various skateboards, bikes, unicycles and a pair of training ski (he was no fool and decided not to go from the top).

There was also a world record attempt to ride a motorbike down on one wheel. He then rode back up still on wheel just for the fun of it. He was a proper stunt rider though and got a fairly massive audience as it was reported in the local paper.

Then there are the 40,000 odd tourists....

This street is interesting to live on!

Our house is on the wiki page but the photo needs an upgrade. We have been doing it up slowly and the roof has been renewed although the colour is still white with lacework. It was built in 1912 so I think we will need to give it a birthday party for being 100 fairly soon :)

viv

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! That IS a steep hill!
I wish I'd seen the person in the recycling bin!

knutty knitter said...

Funny thing is - I don't see it now! Familiarity breeds contempt :)

viv

Cotswoldgent said...

Quite a few car accidents happening over here at the moment with all the snow! Blimey that's a steep road and a very nice house.

Mickle in NZ said...

I was wondering if your lovely home was on "that street".

At least you can drive up to your front door - I have to go down 54 steep, narrow steps to get to my place. On the plus side - I get very few unwanted "door-knockers". And all of the bottom part of the section that the four flats are on is mine.

Sending care and huggles, and respectful strokes and tickles under the chin for your darling cat,

Michelle and Zebby Cat, xxx and purrrrumbles

knutty knitter said...

The house LOOKS very nice but it has taken a power of work to get it even to the point it is now. We have insulated, re roofed, plumbed, totally redone the electrical system and replaced the kitchen sink. We still have the rest of the kitchen, the bathroom/toilet, all the decorating and storage zones except for the front rooms, the skirtings, covings and various other bits still to go.

Then we have to paint the exterior and tile the front veranda and do the veranda roof as we ran out of money for it when we did the main roof.

After all that there is still a huge list of stuff to do outside and then I think we may get to take a bit of time out :)

Old houses just take time and effort!

I did hear there was snow etc in England. We completely missed out this year much to the boys disgust :)

Funnily enough we don't get many door knockers here despite being about 10 feet off the street. I'm not sure why. I think 54 steps would be a real killer for shopping. Great aerobics exercise though :)

viv