In the Day Garden

8-October-07
So, almost a week after we move home and more boxes were unpacked, but more boxes remain stacked – ready to be shunted into the loft. Clearly our lives have collected too many ‘miscellaneous’ items. But we have tried to recycle. And it is here that I succumbed to my latest B’wood experience – the recycling Nazis.
Currently, the council only collect rubbish fortnightly, the other week belongs to recycling.
(Hackney was both rubbish and recycling every week.) So if you have excess rubbish that won’t fill the green/brown/black/blue wheelie bins, you have to take it to the Elstree recycling centre. And that, my friends, is where you encounter the dreaded recycling Nazis. Here, a man in a fluorescent yellow vest who clearly detests all the middle class suburban folk that queue patiently outside the centre, will quiz you endlessly about your armful of junk until you relent, sobbing like a naughty schoolboy until you admit that, yes, the bag did contain one item of non-recycleable wax paper and that, yes, I will sift through the entire lot again and report back next week with the correct boxes for correct skips. Bizarrely, the rather smelly and trashy site sits right next door to some of the poshest cottages in green Elstree – how the local residents must be delighted.
Oh and that’s not all. Every Monday, you must roll your wheelie bin out onto the pavement. Ain’t nobody gonna hike up your sodding path to collect rubbish, oh no. So there they stood this morning, all up my road, like sentries standing guard to each semi-detached house driveway.
For the kitchen waste, you have to use the council approved compostable bags, not the cheaper and more easily obtained Tesco ones, no the hard to find Hertsmere ones. Hmm, I have yet to even get hold of a green caddy, so all my kitchen waste goes into the bin I’m afraid.

Aimee loves the new house. Especially the garden. I spent close to two hours assembling her toddler car which she wheels around like Fred Flintstone, but it’s the inherited Wendy House she loves the most. It’s a filthy old thing, that looks more like a bacteria and death trap for someone so young, so we’ll need to clean it out and fix some rubber mats. The garden also has some sharp stone steps which is just asking for Aimee to slip and split her head open on…or am I being too paranoid?

Cat will undergo her ECV tomorrow. WE have sneeking suspicion that unborn has indeed turned already as Cat felt some kicks into her rib, but we will find out tomorrow.