A Man's Home Is His Castle, Right?

A Man's Home Is His Castle, Right? 

Well that's the old school way of saying it. Saying "One's home is ones' castle" may be grammatically and politically correct (gender neutral, for all that.) But it doesn't 'ring' true. Doesn't sound right.

So, I say 'a man's home is his castle'.

While for a few days there have been these runes painted on the street and sidewalk outside my 'castle'.

Yesterday I came home to a 'moat'.

There were barricades and the whole sidewalk was gone, with a six foot wide trench where the sidewalk and curb used to be. That's definitely a moat in terms of urbanites who don't want to get their shoes wet.

Today we came home to see the new sidewalk formed, poured concrete and draped in wet burlap. There was a guard on duty too. He complained about the dogs walking on the fresh cement and got out his trowels to smooth out the tracks.

He was actually the cement finisher, part of the crew that pours the cement, who stays around to control the curing with the burlap covers and water and to trowel it smooth at critical degrees of hardness known only to those with the experience.

You can hire them and they do the job perfectly but they can't tell you how they know 'when'. It's just experience.

To get to each property they'd laid a steel scaffold deck to walk across over the wet cement moat at each driveway, for all intents and purposes a 'drawbridge'.

They say when they finish the curb, they're going to rip up the whole street and replace it. So it looks like we'll be barricaded in here for a long siege.

Is this mans home his castle?  

It's beginning to feel like it.

I just don't know what to do. I mean, should I sign up for that archery course or light the fires under the cauldrons of oil.

Chess anyone?  Backgammon?