Rubbish.
I am decorating the house .. in painting terms .. all day. It is really, really cold and there is still snow out in the old farm yard although it has melted everywhere else in the world. It's the Christmas artificial deadline going on again. I am totally decorating my middle daughter's new bedroom which is not only .. as I see now it is finally empty .. huge but my husband casually ripped off miles of wallpaper from a tiny hanging bit. 'Hmm .. I think there may be a blocked drainpipe just outside here'. 'You annoying, stupid f.ck', I screamed, coming into the room just too late. Chunks of plaster had been ripped off as well and the whole thing would now need an expert to make it look normal again. Especially for an anally neat daughter. Or maybe not ....

During my weekly lift to the supermarket we swooped in a loop formation to the massive Ra1nb0w Superst0re on the bypass. It is an endless aircraft h@ngar-type place selling everything that has ever existed .. so I was able to buy lin1ng paper and paste ... and many other wonders. Including some ludicrously cheap gold (probably not real) vases for Christmas arrangements and pointless balls covered in chips of black shell .. just to have.

And papered over the crumbling wall in an inefficient but adequate way and as the whole place is lumpy and wavy anyway you can't tell .. and painted over it and it is all fine. Who needs an expert plasterer at vast expense? I don't. And there aren't any at short notice. The only problem now is that much crap from the room is piled in all other adjacent rooms .. horribly. In spite of there being THIRTY black rubbish bags of rat ruined or otherwise really unwanted however sentimental you are stuff piled out in the garden. (From this one room).

Having gone on and ON about my ludicrous hoarding, my husband then began picking oddments out of the bags saying it was a shame to throw THIS (or this) away as 'someone' might want it. A mini Pooh book .. lightly stained .. from a set of ten and a hairline cracked well1ngton boot were a couple of the treasures he held up with a sad face at my wastefulness. Then drove off after instructing me to 'arrange' for the bags to be removed. 'HOW?', I replied in not-modulated tones. 'Well ring up our neighbour - she probably knows how to contact the rubbish truck driver and you could just give him ten pounds'. This is not London. Everything here is far away and down long treacherous drives and tracks. No one driving a massive truck and in their right mind would come down to our house for ten pounds. Or at all.

And there is no way to contact a random driver personally as we found during the four years we had no rubbish collection due to his oversight and had to DRIVE all our rubbish in a normal car to the recycling plant five miles away. Involving a row of varying proportions each week as they checked our 'mixed waste' for its recycling usefulness. 'We don't accept that here .. you'll have to take it back .. and are all those cans washed?' were familiar screaming triggers. I tried to always go with my neighbour .. also collectionless .. as she had a very scary, low, cold tone when questioned about her bags and the 'operatives' would ooze away at the sight of her. My husband, however, brought out their sadistic side .. 'Let's get the p0nce', I imagined them saying as they emerged from their caravan, en masse. They once made him unpack a whole vile kitchen bag saying that they had heard the chink of an unseparated tin somewhere inside.

My neighbour agreed that there was no chance of contacting the truck driver and he collected at wildly random times so I couldn't wait up by the road. Later .. on a whim .. I searched on-line for the name of the council cl3ans1ng dept. and there it was and on their site was a name to click on if you had rubbish collection queries. And then there was an e-mail address .. to which I sent one asking if they could pick up 30 extra bags next week .. and a couple of hours later was a reply .. saying 'Yes'. Errr ... well .. I am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that I couldn't have done that four years ago and reminded them that they were missing out part of their round. CERTAIN. And I still have to get the bags up to the gate somehow. So it is NOT that easy.
- posted by Iris @ 11/30/2005 11:13:00 PM comment