Freezing Sunday Morning

Sunday morning I had to scrape ice off the car windscreen. It is a good deal easier with the new Renault as it has a good heating system which melts off any ice fairly rapidly and also I found an ice scraper which came to light when I was tidying the house the other morning. It might have started of freezing, but as the morning progressed the sun came out and it was quite pleasant, but still a chill in the air. The sort of weather where you need a coat or jacket on of some sort.

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard the rain outside. It sounded as if someone had switched on the shower in the bathroom. It went on for some time. I was expecting there to be flooding in the road outside but there didn't seem to be any sign of flooding when I looked in the morning.

I went out to the car the other morning and discovered a laminated notice had appeared near our wheely bin. It was headed 'Woughton Community Council' and stated that it's an offence to put your rubbish out too early and if you are caught, it can be classed as fly-tipping and you'll incur a fine. Oh come on, this is just another way to wring more cash out of people. So, please tell me this, how are we supposed to deal with plastic bin bags of rubbish, when you might not be at home in the morning that the Council dustmen come to collect it and you need to put it out the previous evening? Are you therefore going to become a criminal and given a fine for being efficient and effective with your time? It seems you can't do right by doing the right thing. Just bureaucracy gone mad. There is also another problem with putting your rubbish out in bin bags (black for general refuse and pink for stuff to be recycled.) and that's the problem caused by cats, birds and possibly other wildlife, which can get into the bags and take the remains of chicken bones out and peck around in it. On one occasion I saw a couple of crows who had got into our black bin bags when I'd put the rubbish out one Wednesday morning and stolen the remains of our Sunday chicken and were fighting over the bones in he street. Also, if the bags are torn open (quite easy because they are so flimsy, particularly the pink bags provided by the Council.) and litter is released from the bags and strewn all over the grass at the front of the house and the road. The Council workers seem reluctant to pick it up. Why on earth don't the Council provide us with two wheely bins (currently you can only use the green wheely bin for garden refuse and are supposed to move it to the road-side on refuse-collecting day for the workmen to deal with.) It would be better to have a second larger bin provided so you put all your bin bags, black and pink, which would prevent birds and other wildlife getting into the bags and also mean you could put your rubbish out earlier and therefore not get fined for so-called fly tipping. We're supposed to put our bags of rubbish out on a Wednesday, before 7 a.m. The thing is, some weeks they come early, almost dead on 7.30, but then on other weeks they don't turn up until 2 p.m. or even later. You can't win. So, does the fact that your rubbish is left out for hours and hours on a Wednesday still get classed as 'Fly-tipping?' Just a stupid technicality to class it as that if it's BEFORE 7 a.m. on a Wednesday. Then, why do the pink bags have to be so flimsy? They tear easily and come on a roll. At first you'd be excused if you thought the roll was just a single piece of plastic sheet, but in actual fact it's two layers and you have to separate these layers, a difficult enough job, and then you have to tear off each individual bag. Then, if you're not careful, you can puncture this bag with whatever you place within it, just a sharp piece of plastic or cardboard. The Council delivers a roll of pink recycling bags once a year, but if you run out before the end of the year, you have to go to the Council offices to receive get another roll. The black bags are no longer provided by the Council, so you are expected to buy your own. If it saves the Council money, then I have no problem with this, so I buy them when I'm in Sainsbury's or any other supermarket.

People going totally mad around Milton Keynes on Sunday. For some unaccountable reason Chaffron Way was closed off near the roundabout on Grafton Street, so I had to reroute and cross over towards  Child's Way, when  I was on my way to Shenley Christian Fellowship for the 9.15 service.  Traffic built up along most of the grid roads on the return journey afterwards as  I had to get something for our evening meal, so I decided to go to Morrison's near the railway station. The place piled high with 'bargains' for Black Week (or whatever it's called. Started out as just Friday, but it seems to have leaked into the following week.) Anyway, piles of toys, games, bottles of wine, Bailey's and other items. Shoppers pushing trolleys loaded up with groceries and stuff they thought they needed but probably don't. Took little time to pick up a chicken, vegetables, milk and other essentials and headed towards the checkout. It wasn't too long before I was through this and pushing the trolley back to the car. An idiot walking along with his mobile glued to his hand, not really looking what he was doing, certainly not engaged with the world around him. Got to the car and a child climbing up inside the trolley his mother was pushing. An accident waiting to happen, but I managed to negotiate this and people backing out of their parking spaces and loaded my things into the back of the car. People not really engaging with the world around them, and seemingly more intent on grabbing the latest bargain rather than being in an accident with either another car or people walking about.