Funny way to encourage recycling

I'm really sick of our local tip!

Over the last year, I've visited it on quite a few occasions and it's bloody hard work.
When we ripped out the kitchen, I painstakingly took the units apart. They were all loaded into the back of the car and despatched to said tip.

On arrival, I headed for the wood skip. But no, that was wrong. These were chipboard so need to go in the non-recyclable. Last time I looked, chipboard was wood! Never mind, I started chucking them in. I was stopped after a few minutes.

"How many units have you got love?", said the attendant woman.
"Well, there's about 5 in total", says I.
I then got given a 'look'. "We're only supposed to take two at a time"
Where is the logic in this? How many people replace a kitchen and only have two units to scrap?

On another occasion, me and H had ripped up the parquet floor in the old lounge. Again duly loaded into bags and carted off. This was wood. Proper wood.

"Sorry love, that doesn't go in there"
WHAT? It's proper wood.
Still, I shrug my shoulders and head over the the non-recyclables. Again I'm told that I've got more than my allowance.
I really don't understand what I'm supposed to do. Hang on to it and take it in 2 bags every fortnight? I'll be taking the same amount!
It almost encourages people to fly-tip.

Yesterday we cleared out one of the sheds. Filled a couple of bags with genuine junk. Of course we then had the usual collection of half empty paint tins. At the tip we got rid of the other stuff and I asked the attendant if they had a special skip for paint.

"Sorry mate, we can't take it. It's classed as hazardous waste"
"Erm, how do I get rid of it then?"
"Well we have a paint amnesty once a year"
"Ah, okay. When is that then?"
"About two months ago"

Great! The guy can tell I'm at a loss and offers this gem.

"What you want to do is empty all of the paint into one tin. We'll happily take all the empty tins. The full one just gets stuck in your wheelie bin under some other stuff. They wont check it."

Seriously.

Oh Deer

Just a quick couple of pics to post up.

As most of you know, we've got some greenland towards the rear of our garden. It's pretty much surrounded by domestic gardens. I've no idea how acres work, so gonna stick with saying just over a hectare. That said, I've just done a quick calculation and for those of you still using old money, it's about 3-4 acres.

Anyway, there is much wildlife in this area, squirrels, pigeons, crows not to mention the owls. We have seen a deer a couple of times. If you went in there to look for it, you'd never find it I'm sure, but he does like to show himself every so often.
Earlier today, I was in our bedroom and noticed him in the distance. Me & H watched for a bit, and then I went to get my camera.
Being as quiet as I could I crept out to the back fence. Peering over, he was looking straight at me even though I thought I hadn't made a sound. He seemed perfectly happy though, so I took a couple of shots.
The quality isn't brilliant, but here they are...

The first one is at the maximum optical zoom for the camera (3x)


This second is using the digital zoom up to 11x, so the quality suffers a little


So there you have the reason for the awfully cheesy post title!

The hardest part of a blog entry is choosing a suitable title!

Well, now that is over (the title), we can get down to business.

I've hard great week off work, most relaxing. Followed a similar routine for all week really, see H off (well, wave at her from bed), get up 8.30-ish, couple of cups of coffee & breakfast whilst watching trash TV. Get dressed and then take the beast for a bit of a run. Back home and crack on with whatever jobs need to doing. Have a bite to eat then off to the gym for about an hour. Back home and by this time it's about 4.30, so disappear down to the Livvy for a couple of Magners! Glorious.

Now it's Saturday. Myself and H are having a bit of a blitz on the house today. We've got Tim, Bobs & Nicole coming later. Should be good fun. I don't think that Nicole will know much about it until tomorrow though as they're not getting here until about 7.30. Tomorrow we're going to Stow Bardolph Farms (LINK!).

Bank Holiday weekend, of course. Nothing really planned for Monday, but it'll be nice having all of next week off together.

Oh, just remembered. Note the chart to the left hand side here? That's a feed from www.last.fm Basically, you install a little plug-in to your computer, it then monitors whatever you listen to and logs it. Charts are then compiled as to your top artist, most listened to tunes etc etc. Give it a look - easiest way is to just click on my chart and goto the home page.

More later.

So little to do...... so much time

Here we are, second day of first week off. Pretty damn happy.

J&D came on Saturday. Good to see them after ages. We took advantage of a sale at the local Indian restaurant. Yep! A restaurant having a sale, good eh? Absolute bargain price of £32 for a lovely takeaway for four. Really tastey too.
Saturday evening was spent having a good old chinwag.

Sunday, I banged a joint of pork in to slow roast at 8am. There is a story to be told here though. I went to the local butchers on Friday to get a nice shoulder. It was only a young girl who served me. I said I wanted a decent shoulder of pork and she picked two from the window. I picked the largest. Just over 2.2Kg for about £10.
So in it went to the oven. It was only when we got it out to carve that we realised it was actually lamb!!! Bad news - no mint sauce!. Good news - it was lovely all the same.

A nice chilling Sunday. Yesterday was pretty good too although I'm not sure where the morning went.

A few jobs to do today, so best crack on.

Why Blog?

Someone that I know on another website has asked if any of the other members on there have a blog, as he's thinking about starting one.
His subject matter is to be all the wildlife that he sees on a daily basis, within a certain area. I think that this would make a great blog.
It does beg the question though as to why people do this?

This is only my take on it, but I'm sure there are plenty of others!

1. Some may do it to get an audience. Almost like preaching. "I've got something to say and now I've got an audience". Of course this relies on people actually being aware of the blog and then to carry on reading it.

2. Some may do it as a personal record, almost like a diary. Diaries are often thought of as personal things. This can still be the case. Just keep your blog secret and/or put a password on it.
But, you may not mind people seeing your ramblings of course.

3. I know of a group of women who have all recently given birth (or are pregnant). They all keep in touch with each other via their blogs. They compare notes, offer support and tell nice little stories about what their little ones have been up to.

4. Similar to the example above, some may see it as a way of keeping people informed of what you're doing.

Where does mine sit? If I had to pigeon-hole it, I guess it's a combination of 2 & 4. I originally started it to keep family and friends informed of how our house project was going. Now that the house is all but finished though, it will probably trundle along with my ramblings and a bit of news of what we're up to.

So, talking of which, what are we up to?

Well it starts off with us both having a day off tomorrow, so that's a good start.
At the weekend, J&D are visiting. First time they'll have been in absolutely ages, so should be good fun.
After that, I've got a fortnight off and H joins me for the second week. Really looking forward to it and got quite a few bits and bobs going on then too. Maybe I'll leave talking about them until nearer the time.

It's Back!

Here we are again!

After a long lay off, I've decide to revisit my blog and this site!

Why come back here? A couple of reasons. Firstly, this site is very easy to use. It's made for blogging, so ideal. Secondly, I don't pay for any webspace here, so I can post pictures etc here without the worry of seeing my webspace decrease!

So where did we get to?

House

Things are just about finished. I've just been writing up the final snagging list. The kitchen floor was the last major item that needed doing and that was completed last week. Unfortunately in the course of finishing it, they thought it might be a good idea to crack the cistern in the downstairs toilet. Don't ask me how! We're now without a downstairs loo, but coping.
Once the snagging is complete, we just need to finish decorating (do you ever finish decorating?)
H is busy organising the dining room as I type this. That room is really coming together too.
The bedrooms are well on the way. We have friends coming to stay towards the end of this month, so need to get this available to sleep in. Shouldn't take much doing.
So there we are. All that pain and effort has been worth it.

Other Stuff

Workwise both of us are both still doing the same things and both pretty damn happy!
I'm coming up to a busy period now though. With two weeks holiday at the end of August (2nd week both of us) that should be okay.

Talking of holiday, we had a week in July with the old folks out in France. Most enjoyable. I'll maybe say more and post some pics later.

Right. That'll do for now. I've never been good at writing loads in any single entry and I'm not gonna change now!

Until the next time....