We live up a short cul-de-sac, the equivalent of two house plots each side. Each week we are requested to take the appropriate wheelie bin down to the road for collection and emptying, and then, of course, we have to go down and fetch it back.
The Dumfries and Galloway Council web site tells us that we can apply to have the bin emptied by the collectors provided that the bin is not more than 30 metres from the road. We duly put in our application, and meanwhile I devised a method of towing a wheelie bin behind car, which, I thought, was very successful.
So, there I am, arriving at the end of our little bit of road complete with wheelie bin, and I get out to untie it and park it on the pavement – but, a man addressed in orange hi-vis gear appears and asks me my name. “Oh”, says he, “and this is how you get your bin to the road is it ?” It turns out he is the man from the Council who has come to inspect us. He is very pleasant to talk to, and it turns out that he knows all about Shingles and its complications having had child hospitalised with it for several months. I tell him I am 89, and he says I do not look like it, so I assure him that I am and that my wife is 90. He confirms that from now on the bins will be dealt with by the Council, and off I go, happy as a sand boy.
Come the day, 4th August, my vigilant wife is on the watch, and she sees the bin men deal with our neighbour’s bin – but not ours. So I leap on to the email and fire off a message to the above mentioned gent, thinking that it is now unlikely to be fixed before the next collection,
But, no !
Back comes an email to say that a bin lorry has been instructed to call and collect the bin, and even as I watch an enormous orange refuse vehicle backs rapidly up our little road and stops by our bins. Out hops a man, empties the bin, and is nobbled by my wife who has a long chat with him. “Nice man”, she says.
I reflect on the irony of our worrying and wondering for several months as to whether the Council would collect our bins and whether we were more than 30 metres from the road – when the lorry solves the question by backing up and parking within touching distance !
