Tuesday 10 April 2012 – As regular readers of my blog, you’ll already know that I’m here in the UK temporarily; so to speak. I’m staying in a short term rental property, in a part of the city that I’ve never had much association with previously. I have thought long and hard about how I can sum of this area in a few words and sadly kept coming back to: – It’s dog rough.
Having had the good fortune to have always lived in semi rural areas, just edging suburbia, life in a built up urban area takes some getting used to. When out in the street, locals here tend to conduct their conversations a few decibels higher than normal. It’s a common practice during the hours of darkness, for car doors to open and close noisily, not to mention the hoot of taxi horns.
But nothing could prepare me for the unheard of custom of sending in the bin men on a bank holiday. Yesterday, the cockerel down the road had crowed, and I was enjoying a little post sleep repose, when a bin lorry with very vocal bin men came down the road. I looked at the clock, it was 07.15.
Now having, as I said had the good fortune of living in less urban areas, I am used to not having a refuse collection if it fell on a bank holiday, the operation always taking place the next day. So why did we have one yesterday?
I can but assume that the natives may not cope with an extra day of a filled bin and could resort to burning its contents, or is it because they need the routine, so that they don’t forget what day they are due to sign on?
Guess who woke up grumpy today?
They don't have enough employees to double up the collection on another day in the week. It's probably cheaper to pay overtime rates.
ReplyDelete--- Peter