![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Life in the country....
(Or indeed the inner city, I suppose!)
Our food waste bin has had a hole in it for, oh, about six months. It was almost certainly caused by the bin men, who have the really bloody irritating habit of picking it up by the locking mechanism, which is detachable, rather than the actual bloody handle, which isn't. When they swing it around exuberantly, the locking mechanism, um, detaches, and the bin goes flying. This isn't the first one that they've broken, and it's presumably not just us that it happens to: the first time we happened, a year or so ago, they just sent a new one out when we complained. This time, they said that they'd check the records and see if the crew had reported that they'd broken it the previous week.
(1, we're crap and it had already been broken for a few weeks; 2) are the crew really likely to carefully make a note each time they break one? 3) if they *are*, why the buggery aren't you just sending new ones out automatically when they do so...? In fact, why not just have a little stack of them in the bin lorry so that they can just leave a new one?)
About three weeks ago, probably-a-rat discovered the hole and went diving in, resulting in a few days of finding egg shells and bits of orange peel scattered on the floor near the bins. I moved the food bin to on top of the main bin, which worked for, oh, at least 24 hours. I told Mike to just pay for a new bloody bin, which he did and was told it would be with us in a few days, or possibly after New Year.
Given the messed up bin collection schedule around Christmas / New Year, I didn't really want to put the remains of the Christmas duck (which has, since Christmas, been in the fridge and then the stock pot) out for ratty, so I did what I've been avoiding (because stinky) and brought it into the porch. The hole's in the bottom of the bin, so I prudently stood it in a spare washing up bowl.
Several hours later, I went out into the porch and discovered that the spare washing up bowl had a crack in the bottom. Sigh. Fortunately, I had another spare washing up bowl*, which appears to be leak free.
* We have an old butcher's sink, which doesn't take most large washing up bowls but looks comically empty with most small ones. It took us a little while to realise that this meant we could only buy washing up bowls from John Lewis. Of course.
Yesterday, it rained most of the night and snowed most of the day: the boys stayed in. Last night, it froze, hard, which on the plus side meant that the mud in the field froze but on the minus side also meant that the road was icy and the school like concrete: the boys were able to go out for the morning (it's melting a bit now, and anyway Mike's gone to see Star Wars and I don't want to have to manage both of them on the road if it's still icy, so we brought them in early), but I couldn't ride. Tomorrow, it's going to rain again. I'm hopeful that I might manage to find a gap in the rain some time in the afternoon, when it's supposed to be showery rather than constant. Ok, that last bit maybe isn't such and inner city problem.
Our food waste bin has had a hole in it for, oh, about six months. It was almost certainly caused by the bin men, who have the really bloody irritating habit of picking it up by the locking mechanism, which is detachable, rather than the actual bloody handle, which isn't. When they swing it around exuberantly, the locking mechanism, um, detaches, and the bin goes flying. This isn't the first one that they've broken, and it's presumably not just us that it happens to: the first time we happened, a year or so ago, they just sent a new one out when we complained. This time, they said that they'd check the records and see if the crew had reported that they'd broken it the previous week.
(1, we're crap and it had already been broken for a few weeks; 2) are the crew really likely to carefully make a note each time they break one? 3) if they *are*, why the buggery aren't you just sending new ones out automatically when they do so...? In fact, why not just have a little stack of them in the bin lorry so that they can just leave a new one?)
About three weeks ago, probably-a-rat discovered the hole and went diving in, resulting in a few days of finding egg shells and bits of orange peel scattered on the floor near the bins. I moved the food bin to on top of the main bin, which worked for, oh, at least 24 hours. I told Mike to just pay for a new bloody bin, which he did and was told it would be with us in a few days, or possibly after New Year.
Given the messed up bin collection schedule around Christmas / New Year, I didn't really want to put the remains of the Christmas duck (which has, since Christmas, been in the fridge and then the stock pot) out for ratty, so I did what I've been avoiding (because stinky) and brought it into the porch. The hole's in the bottom of the bin, so I prudently stood it in a spare washing up bowl.
Several hours later, I went out into the porch and discovered that the spare washing up bowl had a crack in the bottom. Sigh. Fortunately, I had another spare washing up bowl*, which appears to be leak free.
* We have an old butcher's sink, which doesn't take most large washing up bowls but looks comically empty with most small ones. It took us a little while to realise that this meant we could only buy washing up bowls from John Lewis. Of course.
Yesterday, it rained most of the night and snowed most of the day: the boys stayed in. Last night, it froze, hard, which on the plus side meant that the mud in the field froze but on the minus side also meant that the road was icy and the school like concrete: the boys were able to go out for the morning (it's melting a bit now, and anyway Mike's gone to see Star Wars and I don't want to have to manage both of them on the road if it's still icy, so we brought them in early), but I couldn't ride. Tomorrow, it's going to rain again. I'm hopeful that I might manage to find a gap in the rain some time in the afternoon, when it's supposed to be showery rather than constant. Ok, that last bit maybe isn't such and inner city problem.